Rebuilding
by Colubrina
Summary: Hermione Granger returns to Hogwarts to help rebuild the shattered castle the summer after the war. She and the other summer resident - and eventually their friends - have to come to terms with how the war broke more than just the walls of the building. Follows multiple Hogwarts students through '8th year' and one additional year of early adulthood. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

 **Welcome to Rebuilding, home of the nicest readers in fandom, at least IMO. If you are just joining us the format might seem a little strange. Why, you ask, are there so many chapters, and why are they are so short?**

 **This fic was originally structured as a series of drabble-like scenes, some as birthday drabbles. It soon grew into the monster you see looming ahead of you with daily posting of chapters that aimed to be between 700 and 800 words each. They are occasionally longer, never shorter.**

 **Enjoy!**

. . . . . . . . . .

When the war was over and the trials held, Hermione Granger went back to Hogwarts to help rebuild. She planned on going back to redo, if that was the right word, her seventh year and take her N.E.W.T exams and she wanted the building intact for that.

She also had nowhere else to go.

Her parents were well and truly obliviated and consultations with more experienced wizards and witches had all yield the same results. She'd done an excellent job – a most impressive job – but to try to undo it risked brain damage. Let them be, she was advised. They're happy in the life you created for them. Let them live it. She'd listened to everyone who told her this, her face grimmer and her heart lower with each meeting, and finally had conceded that they were right. At least her parents were alive; not everyone could say that. At least they were happy.

She couldn't go to the Weasleys' either, for all that their family had been her wizarding home for years. She hadn't, after all, been able to forgive Ron. He loved her; she had no doubt of that. However, every time he held her hand or hugged or kissed her she was back in the tent in the woods with Harry, abandoned. Maybe it was petty. She'd been able to forgive so many people for so much more. She'd even shaken Narcissa Malfoy's hand and wished her luck after her trial, meaning every word, but Ron she had cared about too much and his betrayal had cut too deeply. If she hadn't loved him before that she would have been able to grow to love him afterward but, as it was, his love felt like ashes in her mouth.

This meant, of course, that Molly Weasley wanted nothing to do with her.

Therefore, she packed her bags and went to Hogwarts. The Gryffindor dorms were in pieces and McGonagall, apologies in her eyes, had suggested the Slytherin dorms because they had been sheltered from the fighting. "There's only one other student living there this summer," McGonagall told her. "By September we'll surely have the Tower ready for you again."

Hermione had nodded. It was a bed and right then she couldn't be too fussy about where she found one of those. She let herself in, rolling her Muggle-born eyes at the 'pureblood' password, and settled into one of the girl's dorm rooms. She was used to the brilliant, sun filled rooms of Gryffindor Tower and the eerie green glow that filtered in through the windows felt depressing and suffocating. No wonder all the Slytherins seemed so miserable all the time, she thought as she set a few novels out on the desk. They probably all suffered mood disorders because they didn't get enough light.

She knew that while quite a large number of people were commuting in every day to help rebuild, almost no one was living in the castle over the summer. Her, the staff, and whoever this other student was. "We're still serving meals," McGonagall had said. "The house elves got angry when we suggested they didn't need to cook so we're all meeting in what was once a classroom. It's in reasonably good shape which the Hall..."

There the woman had trailed off and Hermione had nodded; there was no point in dwelling on what condition the Hall was in. She was here to help fix it, after all. She'd taken the classroom number of the new dining space and said she would meet her fellow residents there for dinner. Casting a tempus charm, Hermione realized that was now and pushed open the door of her room to begin making her way back up and out of the dungeons.

She couldn't even muster surprise when she saw the blond head in the Slytherin common room and realized who the other summer resident was. Nothing had gone right since the war had ended; why should this be any different?

 **. . . . . . . . . .**

 **Happy Birthday,** redqueen22


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N – Happy birthday, Gaeleria**

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco Malfoy hated his life. There were days he wished that bloody Potter hadn't saved him from the fire, hadn't testified at his trial, hadn't saved the whole damned world. Those were the days he wished he were dead, or in Azkaban, or in whatever other hell might be dreamt up for a failed murderer and incompetent Death Eater. Being at home became unbearable; his parents were like an itch under his skin he couldn't reach with their endless worry and concern and he wished they'd bugger off and leave him alone because he might want to be dead but he was too much of a coward to do anything about that wish so they could just go away.

When it was clear they were not, in fact, going to go away, he wrote to Acting Headmistress McGonagall and asked if she would let him come back and help rebuild Hogwarts. Her reply was formal and courteous and, though he was fairly sure he wasn't actually welcome, she did say that, yes, they were accepting all offers of assistance. He was at the gates the next day.

She told him the Slytherin dorms were in the best condition and that he might as well get settled. Was he planning on redoing his seventh year, she asked, and he grasped onto the idea of a year away from his hovering mother and overly hearty father and said that, yes, he would very much like that opportunity.

She looked a tad sour and Draco smiled at that, anger and self-loathing hidden behind a mask more unfeeling than even the one he had worn as a Death Eater. McGonagall assigned him to the library and he spent two weeks silently picking books up from toppled shelves, checking for damage, and then putting them, still silent, into boxes. The cleaning could be done magically but books had to be cleared away first and each one needed to be hand checked. Madam Pince watched him through narrowed eyes for the first hour but decided, or so he assumed, that he could be trusted not to rip pages out and that he knew the difference between a book requiring repair and a book that merely needed to be reshelved. He was forbidden to enter the Restricted Section. He didn't argue with her.

He sorted books in silence, ate meals with the staff in silence, returned to his room where he stared out into the depths of the lake in silence. It was a relief to be left alone. After two weeks, McGonagall pulled him aside and told him another student would be returning to the castle and joining him in the dorms and that she expected him to behave with courtesy and propriety. The threat of how if he didn't he would be sent home was unvoiced but clear, and Draco gave her his politest smile and said he looked forward to the company.

McGonagall made a peculiar choking noise at that but all she said was that the library work would go faster with another pair of hands and Draco nodded. That night he pulled back his sleeve and ran his finger around and around the ugly Mark on his arm and across the fainter red lines that ran through it. He'd taken it willingly; that thought made him huff out a bitter laugh. He'd been so stupid. Every decision in his short life had been so, so stupid. He was stuck with it now, stuck in a silent life where he'd made too many mistakes.

He sorted books again the next day and then went back to his room to wash away the dust before dinner. He heard the new student come in and realized, based on which dorm she went to, that she had to be a girl. He supposed that explained McGonagall's concern about proprieties.

He waited in the common room to walk her, whoever she was, to dinner because his mother would have given him one of her disappointed looks if she ever found out he hadn't offered that courtesy, even to some Hufflepuff half-blood do-gooder here to make everything shiny again. He'd disappointed his mother enough in his life and preferred to avoid adding any additional failures to his list and so he was standing in the room, idly staring out in the lake and thinking about how peaceful the water was, when he heard the familiar voice behind him.

"Malfoy. Bloody hell," said Hermione Granger.

All he could think was, "Fuck."


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione wished McGonagall had warned her she'd be living with Draco Malfoy. It seemed unfair to discover this by just seeing his too familiar head, a head that turned sharply at her shocked vulgarity. He looked miserable for a moment and then his face went blank and she'd have thought she'd imagined the flash of despair in his eyes if she hadn't spent a year living with a similar feeling curled up against her own heart.

"I waited to walk you to dinner," he said, no tone at all in his voice. "The room they've selected can be a mite tricky to find; however, now that I see it's you I realize that was unnecessary. I'm sure you can find it on you own; I won't be offended if you would prefer to not stroll the halls with me, Granger."

"Hermione." She said her name automatically and, at his raised eyebrow, added, "I find being called Granger a bit grating these days and prefer not to be reminded of my family name. If you don't mind, I'd prefer to be called Hermione." She realized how stiff and unpleasant she sounded as the words left her mouth; if there were a less friendly way to invite someone to use one's given name she'd never heard it.

Draco shrugged, his face still showing no emotion at all. "If that's what you prefer."

"It is," she said and they stood there in uncomfortable silence. The truth was she'd much rather not walk to dinner with Draco Malfoy but there didn't seem to be any way to avoid it now that he was standing there and they were both going to the same place. "Lead on, McDuff," she said at last and gestured toward the door.

"It's 'lay on,'" he said. She'd taken a few steps in the direction of the exit and stopped to look at the boy who'd corrected her.

"It's 'lead on,'" she said.

He shook his head. "'Lay on,'" he repeated, "and it doesn't mean 'after you'. It's an invitation for McDuff to start attacking."

"Oh." Hermione considered Draco Malfoy at some length and then said, "Lead on, then, Malfoy. I've had enough attacking for one year and I'd much rather just get dinner."

He held the door open for her. "Enough attacking for a lifetime, I'd think," he said and she saw his eyes flick to her covered forearm as she passed him but he didn't say anything and she found herself grateful for the respite. Most wizards and witches could barely keep themselves from staring at that scar, from telling her how sorry they were, from telling her they weren't prejudiced against Muggle-borns. Ron had wallowed in a guilt that had begun to seem excessive, as though somehow her scar was more about his failure to save her than her actual suffering.

She shook her head as though she could physically toss him from her thoughts and waited for Draco Malfoy to shut the door to his – to _their_ – common room behind him and then let him lead the way to the makeshift dining room. It was a long walk and the silence began to feel as oppressive as the dreary green light in her dorm room so at last she asked, "When did you read _MacBeth_?"

"I had a governess," he said. "Before I came to Hogwarts and over the summers until..." He paused for a moment and then started again. "All the classics and maths and rhetoric."

He didn't explain why he'd read a Muggle playwright and she didn't pursue the matter further. He held a chair for her at the table and they sat in silence and ate the cottage pie, careful not to brush against one another and Hermione stared at the potatoes on her plate and wondered how she'd ended up living with Draco Malfoy and why that still seemed preferable to any of her other options. Her lips curled in a slight smile as she considered that she'd do best to not mention Malfoy's presence to Harry when she wrote to him. Despite testifying on the Malfoy's behalf before the Wizengamot, Harry would probably arrive at the gates ready to defend her honour and the last thing he needed was to be back at Hogwarts.


	4. Chapter 4

Draco held the door for bloody bedamned Granger as they returned to the common room and she murmured polite and empty thanks before disappearing down the corridor and into her room. He knew now why that cursed McGonagall had made that strangled sound when he'd said he would enjoy the company of another student. He wondered if the old tabby knew he'd stood and watched his aunt carve that slur onto Granger's arm. He wondered if the girl hated him for being unable to so much as mouth a single objection to seeing her tortured in front of him. Weasley had screamed and begged to be taken in her place; Weasley had practically torn the door of his cell off its hinges trying to get to her. All he had done was stand there, pale and shaking, wanting to throw up. It was what he'd done after the lot of them had been rescued: gone to his room and lost the whole of the contents of his stomach.

In her place he'd be reconsidering spending a summer in this castle. In her place he'd never want to lay eyes on Draco Malfoy again.

He stood in his room and splayed a hand out over the thick glass of the round window and watched a small fish flit by, the silver scales catching a glint from some late afternoon sunbeam and reflecting it at him. He smiled at the sudden sparkle and leaned his forehead against the glass. How did you apologize for seven years of torment? How did you admit you'd discovered you were wrong in a way that you'd never be free of? Some lessons are quite literally burned into you.

His fingers yearned to pick up the knife he had in his top drawer but he'd promised himself if he came to Hogwarts he'd stop. It wasn't like he could cut the damn thing out anyway.

He waited for her the next morning and they walked in silence to the dining room to grab some toast before making their way to the library together. "Where should we start?" she asked him.

"I've been working through the transfiguration books," he said and she nodded. They worked without speaking, brushing the dust off the books, checking them for damage, and moving them into the boxes Madam Pince had arranged against the wall that had been labeled to make the eventual reshelving process easy. He watched her covertly and noted the way she pushed her curls out of her face with an impatient gesture and bit her lip when she wasn't sure whether a book was damaged or merely old. She exuded an easy competence that he found restful. After an hour or so she said his last name and the sound seemed like a shock in the dusty room.

"What?" he asked her.

She held out a book. "I'm not sure how to categorize this one," she said.

He took it from her. The stitching in the spine was coming unraveled and several pages seemed loose. The damage hadn't been caused by the magical storm that had raced through the castle, toppling shelves and spilling volumes out onto the floor, but the book still needed attention. He sighed and glanced over at the piles of books to be repaired; they found them faster than Madam Pince could fix them.

"We'll never get this done by September," Granger said, following the line of his gaze and taking the book back. She sighed as she stood up and worked some kind of soreness out of her knee, swinging her lower leg back and forth before she crossed over to the box for Pince to address and set the advanced transfiguration book on top of the pile.

Draco looked around the library. Thousands upon thousands of books, each one needing to be individually evaluated. "Probably not," he agreed. "It's not my job to plan the work, though. I just sort the books." He looked down at the volume in his hand and send it sailing across the room to the 'transfiguration: r-t' box.

Hermione nodded. "If I cleaned them and you moved them to the right box we'd get more done," she said.

"Working together?" he asked, taken aback.

"It would be more efficient," she said, not meeting his gaze.

He nodded, keeping his face blank. By lunch they'd developed an easy system. She levitated each book and cleaned the dust off it and sent to his side. He examined them for damage and sent them flying across the room to their appropriate boxes. By dinner she'd come up with a trick to remove the bits of shattered stone and plaster from the books three and four at a time and the table he was standing at was stacked with immaculate books because he couldn't keep up with her. When Madam Pince told them to stop and go get some food and rest he held his hands up in mock surrender. "You win," he said to Granger. "I admit my defeat."

Then he heard what he'd just said and added, vicious mockery in his voice, "But I guess everyone knows that."


	5. Chapter 5

The tentative accord the two had reached after a day of laboring over the books together had shattered when he'd dripped his bitter mockery onto her and she'd given him a shuttered glare before walking off to dinner, still covered in the musty plaster dust that permeated the library. She'd sat with that oaf Hagrid and asked him about what he was doing to repair the castle and he'd gone into a long and, to Draco's mind, tedious explanation of how magical beasts were stabled at Hogwarts and how he hoped to improve the facilities now that they had to start from nothing.

"Yeh could come down an' feed the thestrals," the man invited her. "I mean, now that yeh ken see 'em and all."

Draco had sat, spooning pudding onto his plate, and saying nothing. He'd never liked Hagrid, a dislike he was honest enough to admit, if only to himself, that was based partially on class prejudice, but was also on what a dreadful teacher the man had been. He'd played favorites and he'd hated all of Slytherin House out of some inner bias of his own and his classes had been filled with monsters the man could barely control.

Good times.

Draco would have preferred to have gone his entire life without being able to see the thestrals and the reminder he'd seen people die was one he could have done without. He moved his plate to the sideboard for the elves to clear and walked back to his dorm alone. He had decided he wasn't going to let perfect little Hermione Granger chase him into hiding in his own dorm and had almost defiantly settled himself on one of the sofas in the common room when she pushed open the door.

He said, "Didn't go down to feed the horsies?"

She shut the door with a quiet click and began to walk past him to her room.

"Why are you here?" he demanded of her back. It was the question that had nagged at him since she'd shown up. "This is work for people who have no place better to go," he continued. "This is for the defeated, this is a way to make amends. This is for _me_ , not for you. Not for war heroes with Potter as their best friend and the whole, heroic Weasley clan to back them up." She'd stopped walking and he could see the way she braced her shoulders and he lashed out again, resentful for reasons he didn't even understand. "Aren't you supposed to be planning your wedding to the youngest Weasley boy right about now? Some kind of triumphant thing to grace the papers? Heroes and heroines and romance and happy ever afters and - "

"You need to be quiet."

It was the way she didn't even raise her voice that stopped him and when she turned the way tears were leaving trenches in the dust on her cheeks didn't bring him the satisfaction he'd have expected being able to make her cry would have.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she continued. "You _don't know_. And no, I didn't want to go feed the ' _horsies_ '." Her mouth twisted the last word into an epithet of fury and despair. "I wish I couldn't see them; I don't want to go look at them and be reminded of why I can."

"Me either," he said. It was as close to an apology as he could muster and she didn't look impressed but she didn't leave so he asked again, "Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" she countered.

"I couldn't bear it at home," he said. The words were bald and more honest than he'd expected to be.

"Better dusty books and silence than – "

"Than Malfoy Manor," he said though the words were both truth and lies. He missed the Manor of his childhood with an ache that never went away. He missed the duck pond and evading his governess and flying over the lawns and the way his mum had pushed back his hair with an exasperated smile and clucked over the way he's always managed to get grass stains on his knees right before party guests had arrived. He hated the Manor where he'd watched people suffer and die, where he'd been trapped in a nightmare, where he'd learned things that made Latin declensions seem fun. He'd yet to reconcile that they were the same. He turned away from her and muttered, "What's so bad in your life that being here is better?"

"I wanted solitude," she said.

"And got me."

She shrugged. "Nothing's perfect," was all she said.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco Malfoy had already left when Hermione got up the next morning, a discovery she made only after she waited for him so long in their common room she'd missed breakfast. Casting an aggrieved eye at the hall that led to the Slytherin boys' rooms, she stalked off to the library muttering about people who slept in and made her miss meals only to find the rotter sitting at the table they'd left stacked with books the day before, quietly sending books to their boxes.

Hunger made her grouchy and she dropped her bag by his chair with a loud thump. "Good morning, Malfoy," she said. "No rest for the wicked, I see."

He looked up at her and she was struck by how his face, always angular, seemed sharp and wan the way it had sixth year. He'd always been thin with the sleight frame that suited Seekers but now he seemed like he could be broken by a hard slap. He'd pushed his sleeves up and his Mark – weirdly irritated - stood out again the fair skin and she wondered if he was trying to rub her nose in his past or if he just didn't think about it. Even looking almost ill, he exuded an aristocratic confidence that made her feel like a gauche child. She remembered his casual admission he'd had a private governess and found herself more resentful of his class and his privilege than she ever had been before even as a thread of worry about how frail he was crept into her. He shouldn't have skipped breakfast. He couldn't afford to not eat.

"I thought I'd try to catch up," he said. "You got ahead of me yesterday."

"Peasants are good for that," she said, pushing concern away in favor of the far more comfortable dislike. "Hard-workers and all."

"You said it, not me," he said, and turned his head back to examining a book on transfiguring other people against their will.

"Bring back memories?" she asked.

"You mean of being a ferret," he asked and she felt a twinge of guilt as he levitated the book away to the 'transfiguration: authors j-k' box. "Yes, I like to dwell on the day a madman turned me into an animal and smashed all my bones by hurling me against the ground over and over again." She watched him pull another book off the pile and begin to examine it. He looked up and must have seen the way she gaped at him before she controlled her expression. "Or did you not realize that ferrets feel pain?"

Hermione could feel the blood drain from her face as she stared at him, frozen in place by the nearly placid question.

"I do understand I'm the villain of this piece," Malfoy said, "but maybe you could go back to being an efficient peasant and clean off the books for me?"

She whirled around and, feeling her stomach growl its protest at the missed breakfast, began to clean the books. She cleaned the books _at him_ , stripping the debris from them and sailing to them to the table and then dropping them onto the piles with a little too much vigor to be efficient. She worked, simmering in an unpleasant mix of resentment and relief that he didn't want to talk. She worked and considered their years of mutual antagonism and the way she'd once called him a 'twitchy little ferret' and he'd spun in fear and she'd laughed at him.

He'd been a bully and a horror and he'd deserved it.

She still flinched when she saw women with bushy black hair. She still shuddered away from women in black dresses.

She finally turned and said, her face screwed up like a child about to take a potion, "I'm sorry."

Malfoy set the book he'd been examining down with exaggerated care and looked at her. "I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"It hadn't occurred to me that you'd suffered when you were… the ferret thing," she muttered. "It was just funny. I shouldn't have brought it up and I wouldn't have if I'd realized... I apologize."

"That's quite all right," he said, the practiced graciousness far more irritating than retaliation would have been. "Think nothing of it."

She looked at the way he was bent over the table and sighed. "Would you walk me to lunch?" she asked. Malfoy looked at her and she saw, again, surprise and despair before his face went blank and he nodded and pushed his chair back. What is going on inside your pretty head, she wondered and didn't even realize she'd complimented him in the privacy of her own mind.


	7. Chapter 7

Draco held the door to the library open for his co-worker and watched her walk past him. The hair he'd mocked for years was held back in a pair of braids that made an effort to contain her curls while making her look rather hilariously like a child. Whatever Hermione Granger's failings were, excessive feminine vanity wasn't one of them. Nor, he thought to himself, cowardice. He'd known she was absurdly brave about big things. The war had made that clear. Now he'd seen her be brave about small things as well.

He hadn't expected her to apologize.

Damn her for being the bigger person.

He could feel his jaw clench as he forced himself to make conversation while they walked. He was not going to let her be humble and gracious and pleasant and then scowl at her side like a child. "What's your favorite play?" he asked.

She stopped walking and gave him an incredulous look.

"Shakespeare," he said, as if she were slow. He was already regretting his decision to try to converse with her, manners be damned. "What's your favorite play?"

She started walking again and then said, "I haven't read them all."

"No one's read Timon of Athens," Draco said.

That tricked a laugh out of her. "Or Corialanus," she agreed. She bent her head down and he wondered if she was just not going to answer she waited so long but at least she said, "I know the obvious answer would be Hamlet or Midsummer but I always loved Much Ado. It's trivial and fun and you certainly know from the moment they start arguing they'll end up together but –"

"But seeing them get there is the fun," Draco said. "You would like a romance." He held the door to the dining room open for her and she murmured the generic thanks she always did and he spared a moment to consider that they both, at some point, had had automatic courtesy so drilled into them that they didn't even think about it. "How have you read so many plays," he asked as he held her chair. "Is that normal for Muggles?"

"How have you?" she asked.

"Governess," he said again. "Miss Bishop felt that only the Bard mattered."

"That seems surprising," Hermione said.

Draco gave her a sudden, conspiratorial grin. "Give me a moment," he said, and went over to the sideboard and prepared them both plates with sandwiches and crisps. After he slid back into place next to her he began to explain. "I was a bit of a spoiled child," he began. She made a rude snort and he ducked his head before continuing. "I tended to try to patience of the staff and I believe the woman before Miss Bishop said that no amount of money was worth trying to contain 'that horrid monster.'"

"My sympathy lies with the governess," Hermione said.

"I'm shocked," Draco said. "Miss Bishop was the only person who applied for the position after that. Apparently word had gotten out and my parents hired her for one summer holiday before they realized she was Muggle-born."

Hermione's sandwich had been halfway to her mouth when he said that. He watched her lower it and turn in her seat. "So she taught you Muggle classics," she said. "Did your parents ever find out?"

"They fired her," Draco said. He didn't mention that after the woman had left he'd been told to forget all the nonsense she'd polluted his head with, or that his mother had hired a professional cleaning service to scour every room the woman had been in. He'd salvaged a few books, mostly out of spite at how his favorite governess was just gone one day, and re-read them when he'd been locking himself in his room to avoid the Death Eaters in residence. The irony of that had not escaped him. In retrospect he wondered what desperation had made the woman take a job with people sure to despise her if her background came out. He assumed she was long dead.

"Naturally," Hermione said, and returned to her sandwich. After she took a few bites she said, "Most Muggles our age wouldn't have read as many as I have. I just… I didn't have a lot of friends as a child and I was somewhat precocious. When I went home over summer holidays I mostly read."

Draco nodded. He remembered what she had been like their first year; it had set the tone for his dislike of her. She'd been clever and desperate to prove it. He suspected that even the teachers had found her grating; he'd wanted to shove her into the dirt almost every time he'd been around her. When she'd finally found friends she'd been almost fanatically loyal to them which meant she'd set herself even more firmly against him than just their natural house loyalties and his prejudice would have guaranteed. Enemies from the very beginning.

"What was your favorite?"

"Play?" Draco asked her, just to be sure. When she nodded he shrugged. "Titus."

She gave him a horrified look so he elaborated. "It gave me a context. War generates atrocity. What I was… it wasn't unique. It was _human_." He lowered his head and said so quietly he doubted she heard him. "I was human."


	8. Chapter 8

When Draco Malfoy said 'Titus' Hermione felt horror creep down her spine. Titus Andronicus was not a play with which anyone should identify. She choked down the rest of her sandwich and heard the whispered, 'I was human,' and wanted to go to her room and cry. Instead she licked her lips and ate her crisps and took his plate to clear away when lunch was done.

"I think I should have the rest of the transfiguration books cleaned by dinner," she said as he held the door. "Then I can help you sort and we'll have the whole section done."

"Arithmancy next?" he asked as they walked through the deserted halls. Even in the few days she'd been here she could see progress being made. The library work was slow and labor intensive compared to the way magic could rebuild walls and shore up shattered towers. She and Malfoy were tucked away doing the detail work no one else wanted while the showy tasks got handed out Ministry work crews with _Daily Prophet_ reporters embedded in their midst. She pointed out a window now and Malfoy stopped to watch a photographer document a group of well-dressed wizards as they lay a cornerstone for the new Quidditch pitch.

"Priorities," she said.

"You want to be photographed?" he asked her.

"No," she said with a shudder. The last thing she wanted was to be back in the papers. She hadn't even arranged to have a subscription forwarded to her here. She just didn't want to know anymore. "You?"

"If they took my picture it would be to accompany an article on how McGonagall's mad for trusting me to help with the rebuilding," Malfoy said. "I would prefer to avoid that." He stepped away from the window. "Arithmancy section next?" he asked again.

"Gentleman's choice," Hermione said.

"I'm afraid you don't have one of those to hand," he said. He started to walk away and she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He flinched at the touch but she didn't pull her hand back.

"Malfoy," she said, frustrated because she wasn't sure how to say this without sounding like a sap. "Whatever else you've been and are, you're certainly not… you're…." She sighed and gave up and rubbed her face with her hands. "Arithmancy's fine," she muttered.

"Were you trying to say something nice about me," he asked and she let out an exasperated huff and started to walk to the library. Malfoy followed, transformed by amusement into the far more familiar prat. "You couldn't find one nice thing to say? Let me show you how it's done." He stopped walking and cleared his throat and she turned to watch him. "You do not look quite as bad in those braids as most girls would," he said in a tone of utter and complete seriousness only partially belied by the smirk on his face and the dramatic placement of his hand over his heart.

She opened her mouth to tell him off and then her eyes crinkled into a smirk of pure mischief that matched his. "You are somewhat less unpleasantly arrogant than you were at fifteen," she said.

Draco Malfoy began to walk again. "You," he said, " Are not as ignorant of literature as I would have supposed."

"Upon due reflection, I do not find the pale colour of your eyes and skin wholly repulsive," Hermione retorted.

"You are at least half as clever as you think you are," he said.

"Three-quarters," she said.

"What?" Draco asked her.

"I am at least three-quarters as clever as I think I am," she explained.

Draco began to laugh. "You are somewhat more useful at book sorting than the average girl," he offered.

"Your manners are not as bad as the average boy's," she said, trying to hold back the giggles that were threatening to spill out of her throat.

"Well," he said, "You were dating Weasley. Your standards might not be that high."

She felt as if he'd kicked her and all traces of amusement sank away. He must have sensed the change because he stopped walking and looked at her. "Shite," he said. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she said as she held open the door to the library. "Think nothing of it. Arithmancy's fine for our next section; I'll just get the rest of the transfiguration books cleaned up and then start helping you sort."


	9. Chapter 9

He'd promised himself – _promised_ himself – that he'd stop but he barricaded himself in his room that night after a silent afternoon of working and a silent dinner and a polite thank you as he held the door into the common room and sat on his bed and stared at his desk.

"You're a fucking idiot, Malfoy," he muttered. "Worthless, worthless, worthless."

He'd sat in the library and sorted books and felt the lack of even the minor social interaction with the witch as if it were a gaping hole. She'd said she was sorry – actually sorry – about the ferret incident and he'd known she meant more than she was sorry she'd brought it up. She was sorry it had happened. She was sorry she'd laughed. She was sorry she hadn't understood. She was sorry sorry sorry and no one else had ever been and he'd repayed that by twisting the knife about Weasley.

Why the fuck wasn't she _with_ Weasley, anyway? Why was she here, sorting books and living in a House he knew she despised? He didn't believe for a moment she wanted solitude. Something had happened and she'd fled to the emotional safety of Hogwarts the same way he had. He buried his head in his hands and tried to do the breathing trick he'd read about. Breathe in calm thoughts. Breathe out the way it had felt to sit in his house terrified he'd die. Breathe in peace. Breathe out watching that monster's snake eat a teacher. Breathe in ease. Breathe out watching Hermione Granger get tortured. Breathe out the sound of her screaming. Breathe out the way his aunt had laughed in delight.

He wrenched open the drawer and stared at the contents. Just once, he thought. Just to calm down. Just to make the memories go away.

He let go of the handle and muttered, "You promised, you said no more," and he backed away to the door of his room. He crossed the common room to the corridor that led to her room and stood there. "I'm sorry," he said, the words echoing down the hall. "I'm an arse and I'm sorry."

He could hear the latch to her door click open and then she was standing there, lit only from the side by the light from her room, the braids undone and her hair bushier than he'd ever seen it and she was wearing pajamas and staring back at him. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and turned to go.

"I couldn't forgive him," she said. The words were abrupt and Draco suspected she hadn't meant to say them. He froze and listened to her walk up behind him. "He left us that year, Ron did, left Harry and me alone and I'd loved him and it felt like a betrayal on so many levels and I couldn't… it was over. I couldn't trust him agains. Not really."

"So you moved in with me," he said, the mockery back in his voice. "Because I'm such a good guy."

"Well," she said, "that wasn't my goal. You were sort of unexpected."

"I could go," he said, hating the idea but holding it out to her anyway. "My parents would be glad to have me back."

"Do you have nightmares in that house?" she asked. He didn't answer and she said, "I would in your place."

"I have nightmares here too," he said, keeping his voice as light as he could. "I'm not sure the location matters that much. I did terrible things here too."

"You tried to survive." His back was still to her and he wasn't sure he could bear the note of understanding and he took a step forward, deeper into the dark of the common room and further from her voice.

"I think," he said, "there are things one shouldn't do even to survive. Something I have realized only in retrospect."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Draco closed his eyes and shuddered. He could hear her moving behind him and then there was the touch of her hand on his shoulder again. "You'll hate me," he said. "You would hate me."

"Well," she said, "we aren't exactly friends now so it's not like you'll lose a relationship that matters to you and maybe talking would help."

"How did we move from my apologizing to you for being an arse to you offering to listen to me prattle on about the assorted miseries of my life?" he asked.

"Conversations," she said. "They meander. And I've been best friends with two boys since I was eleven and spent a year living with them in a tent. I'm reasonably good at knowing when male type people are upset."

"Male type people?" Draco asked.

"Let's see if the elves can be convinced to send over some hot chocolate," she suggested. "I'll tell you about camping and you tell me about…not camping."


	10. Chapter 10

**Happy Belated Birthday, LB123!**

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They sat on opposite ends of the same couch and didn't touch and didn't make eye contact and drank the chocolate the elves had been willing to bring him but not her and he talked. He talked about being afraid and about being desperate. He talked about hope held out in a form he couldn't trust that was too little much too late. He talked about witnessing the kind of horrors only a madman with power could orchestrate and about hiding in his room. He told her how he'd thrown up after she'd been at the Manor. He told her he'd been so lost he hadn't known what to do. He told her how it had begun to feel like a mountain looming over him and there was no way to climb it and no way to make it go away and how he'd begun just pretending it wasn't there.

"Your friends?" she asked and he looked up at how wretched she sounded and saw her watching him as though something had broken inside her while he talked and he hated himself for that too. As if she hadn't borne enough, now he was trying to make her carry his ordeals too. He'd brought them on himself; he needed to be the one to suffer them.

"Which friends would those be?" he asked her. "Vince and Greg were all in. Pansy terrified and keeping her distance. Blaise determinedly neutral."

"The other one?" she asked, unable to remember his name. "The skinny one?"

"Theo?" Draco asked and then shook his head. "He has problems of his own; he doesn't need mine."

"Did you ever ask?" She was leaning toward him as though she could somehow use proximity to convince him she was right and he turned and looked at the black windows that peered into the lake. They'd only lit one lantern and neither had cast a lumos and the room was nearly dark and the flickering light gave an illusion of intimacy. He'd probably told the witch more than he should have thanks to that light.

"No," he said. "I never asked." He turned back to her. "You have problems of your own too."

She shrugged. "I'm alive and in one piece and that monster is dead. After that, everything else is details." She stood up. "C'mon."

"What?" He stared at her. Barefoot, rumpled, her hair something that would give an arachnid nightmares, she was holding the lantern and looking disreputable and unpredictable.

"This place is too dark and I miss the sky," she said. "Let's go look at the stars." He gaped at her and she laughed. "Too naughty for your tastes? There's no curfew, you know. And I hardly think I'm at risk for you taking advantage. Between the Gryffindor thing and the Mudblood thing, I'm not exactly your type."

He stood up, wariness competing with the urge to be leave everything behind for one beautiful night and go outdoors at midnight with no shoes and no fear. He nodded and held the door for her. "You shouldn't call yourself that," he said as they picked their way over the cold stone floors, up a set of stairs, and to the nearest exit.

"A Gryffindor?" she said and ducked her head to get through the low door. "But it's what I am."

"That wasn't what I meant," he said and looked at her after straightening up himself to realize she was grinning at him.

"You're…." He trailed off and looked at the woman standing there on the scruffy grass outside the partially ruined castle with a lantern in her hand as if he'd never seen her. She still had pajamas on, of all things, and the light from the flame was reflected in her eyes with a gold glint and she was absurd and beautiful and laughing at him.

"I have a sense of humor?" she asked. "I'm not just the rule-abiding swot you assumed I was? Let's go, Malfoy. The viewing's better from over there. The castle gets in the way here."

He followed her, stunned and obedient, and heard himself saying, "Draco."

"What?" She stopped and turned to look at him, the lantern illuminating her face.

"My name is Draco. And you'll have to turn that out or you'll be night blind from looking into the flame."

"I know," she said.

"I should hope so," he replied. "We only went to school together for six years. I know I can be a little forgettable, but after all that time I'd like to think –." She reached over and hit him on the arm. He rubbed at the spot and smirked at her.

"I meant about the lantern," she said. He watched her make a face, settle to the ground, turn the light off, and then mutter, "Draco."

He sat down, stretched his legs out, leaned back on his hands and looked up at the clear sky. It was a new moon and he could see the smear of white across the sky that was the Milky Way. "I love star gazing," he said.

"Me too," she said and the grass rustled a bit as she shifted to get more comfortable.

"What makes you think you're not my type?" he asked. "Hermione."

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N – I'm going to pimp one of my own short dramiones that no one reads because the first chapter remains what I think is one my best: Protective Custody.**_

 _ **Three other recs, all of which are linked out of my favorites:**_

 _ *** No Rest for the Wicked by hydroxyzine. It's a darkish!dramione one shot.**_

 _ *** Her Blood Runs Pure by QueenofConstellations. It's a multi-chapter pureblood!Hermione where she and Draco go under cover in the Death Eaters.**_

 _ *** Aca-demic Arrangements by dulce de leche go. It's a hilarious and light non-magical tomione AU. Don't be scared by the tomione thing; this is genuinely fun and not evil.**_


	11. Chapter 11

**Happy Birthday, AustereS0uls/draxox**

 **. . . . . . . . . . .**

"Oh, I can think of a few reasons I might not be your type," Hermione said. "There's my embarrassing Muggle birth, our long-standing, mutual dislike, our school House rivalry, that we were on different sides of an actual war, you hate my friends, my friends hate you. We can barely manage a single, civil conversation without aggravating one another. I could go on."

Draco lay on his back with his hands folded behind his head and thought of the reason she didn't name: she didn't say anything about his aunt or her suffering in his home.

"I can see why I might not be _your_ type," he said.

"Oh, yes." Her drawl was amused. "Rich, attractive, popular boys are definitely not my type at all. No one likes those."

"I was thinking more about the Death Eater thing," he said, turning his head to look at her. "And if you think I'm popular you might want to reassess that. Again. Death Eater."

"I can see where that might lose a man some friends," Hermione said, "But I don't think you are one. Were one."

Draco almost goggled at her in the darkness. "Did the war do something to your brain?" he asked after a long pause. "You've seemed to be fine but I know trauma can do some weird things to people. I assure you, I'm a Death Eater. Was a Death Eater. Held my arm out. Got Marked. It was not pleasant so the memory is hard to forget, much as I might like to."

She sounded impatient. "Draco, if someone had held me down in your house and burned that thing into my arm would it have made me a Death Eater?"

"I held my arm out. I wasn't forced," he said, desperate to make her understand.

"There are ways of being forced to do something far more insidious than violence," she said softly. "You were young. Your father was in prison. Your family honor, this thing you'd held as so important your whole life, was at risk." He felt her fingers brush against his and then hold on. "You've been an arsehole and a shite for most of the time I've known you," she said, "But you weren't a Death Eater. Not really. Not like the Carrows were. Not like your aunt was."

Draco Malfoy began to get the feeling that arguing with her was not going to get him anywhere and the idea that maybe one person didn't hate him just for the Mark on his arm, didn't think he was really a Death Eater, was seductive enough that he decided to hold onto it. "Still not popular," he said.

"Eh," she said. "Popularity's overrated. I've never had a lot of friends. People find me grating and pushy."

That was so honest Draco laughed and turned onto his side to look at her instead of the sky, not letting go of her hand. She was on her back but her face was turned to him and with his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could almost make out a look of pleased trouble on her face and he wondered again who was this woman who'd drained his fear by listening to him, who'd dragged him outside, and who somehow managed to turn 'you're an arsehole' and 'I'm grating' into flirtation.

He began to understand why an international sports star had taken her to a dance their fourth year.

"Wait," he said. "Did you call me attractive in this conversation?"

"Also a shite," she said.

"But an _attractive_ shite," he said.

"Well," she said. "I'm not blind. And I have been working with you all day, every day. And eating meals with you. You are not unpleasant to look at."

He reached his hand over and brushed his fingers across her face in the dark. "Your gushing praise is going to give me an inflated ego," he said. "Hermione Granger."

When his fingers brushed over her lips she inhaled sharply and pulled away from him. "I think we should go back," she said. "We'll be too tired to work tomorrow."

"Right," he said. She relit the lantern and he stood up, not making eye contact now that the safety of the darkness had been stripped away. "Thank you," he said. "For listening and for bringing me out here. It's been a long time since I looked at the stars. It helped."

She laced the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the lantern though his and said, "Friends?"

He looked at the woman standing next to him with that hair and that flame glittering in her eyes again and shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. She looked like he'd slapped her until he reached over and ran his thumb over her mouth again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Happy Birthday, vitik2326**

 **. . . . . . . . . .**

Draco shut his desk drawer without looking into it and lay in the darkness of his room and closed his eyes. He still had grass stuck to the soles of his feet, and probably to the back of his trousers, and dirt in his hair, and he was going to need coffee in the morning to survive a day of sorting books. He ran a hand over his Mark and swallowed and whispered, "Not one, not really. Not like the Carrows," before he fell asleep with the feel of her mouth lingering on his fingertips.

Despite the late night he still beat the witch to the common room and lounged as nonchalantly as he could manage against one of the support pillars. He'd taken as quick a shower as possible and watched the dirt and grass slip away and pulled on black trousers and a simple black shirt and knew – _knew_ – he looked rumpled and appealing and she'd already conceded he was attractive. That made the way she'd barely glanced at him more jarring than he'd expected. "Morning," she said. "Coffee?"

"Yes, please," was his only response. She was out the door before he could hold it and he found himself trailing after her through the dungeon corridors and up staircase after staircase as she plodded toward breakfast and stimulants without looking back at him. By the time they'd gotten food and caffeine and settled in front of the Arithmancy section in the library he'd realized she didn't plan to say anything about their conversation or his tentative advances.

That wounded his pride. He was a Death Eater but he was also a _Malfoy_. He was… girls tried to get his attention, he didn't try to get theirs. And she was a –

He cut off that line of thinking.

"I'm not going to apologize," he said at last as they began to assess the tumbled shelves.

"I think we should set this upright before we start," Hermione said, touching the bookcase. "It'll be easier to get to the books once it's out of the way."

"You don't even intend to acknowledge what I said?" Draco demanded.

"Fine," she said, her hand still on the shelf. "You don't plan to apologize. Can you help me with this or should I do it alone?"

Draco pulled out his wand, his very new wand that still felt alien in his hand, and helped her shift the large and heavy case up and back onto its moorings. She directed books out of the way of its base and they twined their magic together to get the old and heavy wood stabilized and upright. When they were done she said, "Should we treat this the same way we did transfiguration? I'll clean them and you sort them?"

He tucked his wand back away and reached to her hand and brushed his fingers across the back of her knuckles. She twitched her hand out of his reach. "Am I really that repugnant?" he asked her.

She sighed and rubbed her hand over her eyes. "You called me names for years, Draco. The worst names you knew. And I – "

"I don't think that way anymore," he protested.

"I'd believe you think you don't," she said. "I'd even believe you don't want to. But you do."

"I don't," he said. "I'm working in the library with you. We're civil – mostly civil – and if I was what you say that wouldn't be – "

"I didn't say you were the same rude shite you were at thirteen," Hermione cut him off. "I don't think, after the war, you're going to start yelling slurs at me." She sagged a little. "Draco, your father never called me names in public either, and neither did most people who still thought... Your bias… it isn't about being rude. It's about… you really think I'm less because I'm not from a wizarding family. And I've spent so many years fighting that and I'm tired and I don't want to fight anymore. I just want to be left alone and not have to fight."

"I don't think you're less." Draco took her hand again and didn't let it go. "Would we be having this conversation if I thought that?"

"Yes," she said. "Sit and sort with me."

She pulled her hand away and lowered herself to the library floor and began to make piles of books that had been damaged when their own shelf had crushed them. Draco hesitated a moment and then joined her. She handed him books and he flew them to boxes and neither said anything for a long while until, at last, Draco said, "I don't understand."

She set the book in his hand down and reached out to him and he clasped his fingers around hers. "Isn't this sweet?" she asked. "The Mudblood and the pureblood holding hands. And you aren't pulling away and you aren't wiping your fingers on your trousers and everything's all lovely until your friends come back. Until the rest of your House comes back. Until your parents find out. Then what? What do you tell your friend Theo? Is he going to be thrilled, or even _indifferent_ to the idea of you dating beneath you?"

"You aren't – "

"Do you start to feel ashamed or defensive? Do you tell him I'm your little walk on the wild side? Or a pity date? Or maybe that you're trying to get in good with the Order?"

Draco felt a lump in his throat as she continued with relentless, merciless thoroughness.

"Are you ready to defend holding my hand all day, every day, to everyone you know? Because you'd have to."

"It wouldn't be like that," he whispered.

"It would be _exactly_ like that," she said.


	13. Chapter 13

Draco picked up an Arithmancy book with a broken spine and moved it to the overflowing repair box by Madam Pince's desk. Hermione handed him another, one she'd cleaned already, and he floated it away as well. Pince had already moved the transfiguration book boxes back to some storage room to wait for the library to be completed and the wall had been neatly laid out with boxes for the Arithmancy section. The librarian had, it would seem, kept note of what area they had decided to work on next.

"It was, in some ways, the same with Ron," Hermione said after a long silence and Draco sucked in a breath; despite offering to talk about her camping adventure the night before they had not, and, other than her inability to forgive Weasley after some unspecified abandonment during the war, Draco was still unclear on how or why that relationship had fallen apart. "His family… they liked me well enough, I guess, but I was exotic. I was something different. I was never really one of them, not like Harry was. His father… he has some kind of obsession with Muggle trinkets, like he's collecting the art of primitives or something. He'd hold up a broken light bulb and talk about how _clever_ Muggles were, being able to get by without magic because of their – "

"Cleverness." Draco said the word softly as he watched her. "As if you were a monkey who'd figured out how to use a sharp rock as a tool. Not nearly as good as what real people have, but still so very clever."

"For a monkey," she agreed. "Exactly. They have some uncle or great uncle or something who was a squib that they never talk about. Never. It's disgraceful, you know, to have family who aren't magical."

"I know," Draco said, looking away at last. Most squib children were never mentioned. He spared a thought that even the blood traitor Weasleys had avoided their non-magical kin as shameful. So much for their self-righteous perfection.

"And they aren't even blood purists," Hermione continued. "Not like – "

"Not like my family," Draco said. "Not like my friends." He lowered his head, defeated. She was right; dating her would be an endless series of explanations. He'd have to defend her to everyone he knew, assuming any of them would speak to him, and even people too polite to say anything would stare or, worse, make a point of not staring. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I shouldn't have presumed I was worth… I'll go sort the clean ones once you move them to the table and try to stay out of your way." He pulled himself up and walked to the table, each step like a knife as he waited for her to tell him to stay and she didn't.

It was a silent and efficient and dreary morning and by lunch his table was piled with immaculate books and the work partner he'd been sneaking covert glances at was covered in the dust and plaster and stone bits she'd been removing from the books.

"I've grown to hate the shattered busts of great wizards of old," she said as she came and perched on the edge of the table. "Not a one of them survived Voldemort; I think they all flung themselves off their pedestals in some kind of protest or something and now bits of them are all in my hair." She plucked out a thumb-sized bit of stone from her curls. "Why, Adalbert Waffling, why?"

"Where was that?" Draco asked.

"In a book on magical theory, of course," she said. "I think it had been miss-shelved because it shouldn't have been in that section. Let's take a break and get lunch."

"I think I'll work though," he said. "You're ahead of me again."

He didn't look up at her, just pulled another book off the pile and flipped through the pages. He flinched when she put a hand over his and pushed the book down to the table. "You're too thin," she said. "You need to eat."

"Am I your project now?" he asked.

"No," she said, standing up and yanking on his hand until he stood as well. "My friend."

Draco had some thoughts about halves of loaves as they walked to the dining room.


	14. Chapter 14

"Tell me a secret," Draco said. The afternoon had been less uncomfortable than the morning and by dinner they'd eased into another quiet rapport. After their rambles the night before, and the emotional strain of the aftermath, both had flopped onto the couches in the Slytherin common room too tired to even do so much as read. Hermione let her head loll back against the leather couch and poked at it.

"I hate your common room," she offered. "It's dark and the furniture's too nice."

Draco picked his head up to look at her. "Too nice?" he asked. "Are you peasants all sitting on ratty overstuffed couches with fraying upholstery up in your tower or something?"

Hermione nudged him with her foot. "Snot," she said.

"So that's a yes," he said and lowered his head back down and stared up at the ceiling. "My gratitude that I was Sorted the way I was remains intact. Worn out furniture. In magic school. Wonders have actually ceased."

"It's cozy that way," she muttered. "This dark, gloomy, literal dungeon you live in is not cozy."

"It's restful," he said. "It's soothing. And I am not a snot."

Hermione didn't even bother to respond to that. Instead she just said, "You tell me one."

Draco sat for a long time and considered what to say. She'd revealed very little and that seemed to set the tone and after last night's confessional that was probably wise. He just didn't think he had any trivial secrets. That he didn't care for Turkish Delight seemed ridiculous. That he had a knife in his top drawer seemed like too much. He settled on, "I miss my parents."

"Then why are you here?" Hermione asked.

He sighed. "They… ever since the war it's like they have to reassure themselves I'm okay and they need me to tell them I'm okay and – "

"And you're not okay," she said.

"I'm fine," he said.

She nudged him with her foot again and he shifted so he could look at her. She had her cheek on the arm of the green leather couch and for all her complaining that she didn't like the common room she looked comfortable. She'd showered the dust away and changed into a long cotton dress that had hitched up around her legs and revealed more thigh than she probably realized and she was watching him with those same dark eyes that he'd fallen into the night before. Summer seemed to stretch out before him as endlessly, unbearably long and he wondered how he was supposed to live with those eyes that saw everything and be the friend she'd walk away from as soon as her Gryffindor mates returned. "I'm not fine," he said, "but it doesn't matter. I miss them and I love them and I couldn't stand to be home so I'm here."

"I miss my parents too." She said it so softly he almost didn't hear the words and probably wouldn't have realized she'd spoken if he hadn't seen her lips move and so did the survival trick of replaying the last five seconds in his head.

"Where are they?" he asked once he was sure what she'd said.

"Australia," she said and then, inexplicably, started to cry. "They're in Australia and they're fine and I'm here."

He got up and slid across the floor to her and, almost afraid, reached up to put a hand on her shoulder. She shuddered and he used the other hand to wipe some of the water off her face and said, the words almost question, "So go visit them."

"I can't," she whispered. "They don't know who I am."

And then she told him and, by the time she was done explaining how she'd obliviated her parents and sent them away to protect them from people like his, she'd slid to the floor and he had his arms wrapped around her and she had her face buried in his shoulder as she cried and cried. "You're so brave," he murmured against her hair. "So goddamned brave. Is there anything left you didn't sacrifice?"

"Harry," she said through hiccups.

"Well, Potter's into self-sacrifice," Draco said. "Doesn't need you to do it for him. Just wait long enough and he'll probably find some way to manage it again."

She laughed through the hiccups at that, the horrible choking sound of someone who can't stop crying even though they've started to giggle too and she got out, "You're awful," but it sounded a lot like 'Don't let go' so he didn't.

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 _ **A/N – Blah blah blah tumblr blah blah blah review blah blah blah I need coffee**_


	15. Chapter 15

Hermione rested her cheek against the absurdly soft t-shirt Draco Malfoy was wearing and contemplated both that he clearly paid more for very casual clothing than she had for her last formal dress and that she had been soaking that oh-so-expensive cotton shirt with tears and snot and rather than make sounds about her filth he was just running a hand over her hair and making soothing noises.

When at last she stopped hiccupping, she pulled away from him and muttered thanks through sniffles. He handed her a transfigured handkerchief and discreetly scrougified his shirt while she blew her nose and wiped her eyes. When she tried to hand the square of white cotton back to him he shook his head and said with a grimace that was almost, but not quite, gallant, "That's fine. You can keep it."

She stood up and brushed her clothing off trying to cover her embarrassment that she'd wept all over him. Life with Draco Malfoy appeared to be one emotionally fraught scene after another. She was trying to figure out how to make a graceful exit to her room when he stood as well, lowered all the lights to nothing with a wave of his wand, and took her by the hand in the suddenly dark room.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I want to show you something," he said, and he led her over to one of the deep window seats that looked out into the dark lake. Hermione had eyed the windows when she'd first moved in with disdain. What was the point, she'd wondered, of having a view of nothing? Now this unexpected roommate nudged her until she sat on the immaculate cushion – probably silk, she thought, running her hand over the nubby fabric and hiding the urge to roll her eyes at the ostentatious nature of it – and he directed her attention out into the dark lake.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" she asked.

"Wait," he said. "It stays light late enough now that you should see – there!"

He pointed at a sudden flash of silver and she blinked as the dull light that did reach into the lake, filtered through so much sediment the water seemed as dark green as everything else in the Slytherin dungeon, hit the scales of a fish. Then it hit another one, and another, and a school of small fish darted by and she gasped in delight at the sudden rain of sparkling dots from the reflections.

"They hide away when the lights are on," Draco said in a hushed voice. "But when it's dark they come out. Fish always. The mermaids, sometimes. Everyone once in a while, the giant squid."

Hermione could hear her breath catch again as a larger fish passed by their window with a lazy twitch of its fins.

"C'mere." Draco had leaned his back up against the wall framing the seat and, now that her eyes had adjusted to just the light that came in through these window, she could see he had one leg dangling down to the floor. He pointed, rather peremptorily she thought, at the space between his spread legs. "Honestly," he said when she didn't move, "I don't bite."

She regarded him. Weeping all over Draco Malfoy in a fit of grief seemed, somehow, different than settling back against his chest to sit and watch the fish swim by. She was about to shake her head no and stay where she was when she saw one of those flashes of despair pass through his eyes and changed her mind. She turned so she was almost leaning against him, her body held rather stiffly as she watched the window, and he, with caution as if he expected her to push him away, wrapped one arm around her. Another school of small fish passed by, then a single long, narrow fish, and bit by bit she let herself return to sagging against that soft shirt. She looked down at the arm around her and laid her palm over the exposed Mark. He flinched but when she didn't say anything he tightened that arm around her. She could feel his chest rise and fall as he inhaled; eventually she slipped down so her head was pressed against him so she could hear the beating of his heart. The sound lulled her and, already tired, she could feel herself struggling to stay awake. It wouldn't do to fall asleep in Draco Malfoy's arms, she thought as her eyes kept trying to close. It would give him the wrong idea. She didn't want to give him the wrong idea.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N – Thank you for all your lovely thoughts here and on tumblr.**_


	16. Chapter 16

Draco leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes and just sat in the window seat and felt Hermione Granger slowly relax against him until she was on the verge of sleep. He couldn't imagine having willingly sacrificed his parents the way she had; as much as his own parents grated on him with their incessant, smothering concern he loved them with the same fierce love he knew they felt for him. What a horrible choice she'd had to make to keep them safe.

A choice that was his fault. His side's fault. "Mea culpa," he murmured. "Mea maxima culpa."

He tightened the arm he had around her and she made a vague noise before shifting a little against his chest. Now he understood why she was here. No parents to go home to and she'd ended things with Ron Weasley so his house was out of the question. Potter, he supposed, was tucked into the bosom of the Weasleys with his diminutive girlfriend and best friend keeping him tied into that family.

Meanwhile, Hermione Granger was adrift in the world she'd saved and so stuck here rebuilding a library with an old enemy. He sighed and opened his eyes and looked down at the bushy haired witch who was most definitely asleep by this point and sighed again. He was the least equipped person he knew to help anyone and he didn't even think she wanted help, much less trusted him to offer it. And soon enough everyone would trickle back into Hogwarts and she'd return to her sunlit tower with its apparently ratty furniture and he'd be down here alone.

"Granger," he shook her a little and she made a tiny noise and just burrowed into him. "Hermione," he said, trying again. "I doubt you want to sleep on the window seat."

She startled awake at that and sat up, pulling away from him. He couldn't tell but he suspected she had turned bright red in the darkness "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's fine," he said. "I'd carry you to your room but I'm not sure if the wards are still up so I'm afraid you'll have to walk."

"I'm sorry I got your nice shirt all wet," she said around a yawn.

Encouraged, he reached a hand out to lace his fingers through hers. "It's not that nice," he said. "Just a t-shirt."

"Feels nice," she said and didn't pull her hand away and didn't stand up to walk away.

Draco smiled to himself in the darkness. "I'm glad my efforts didn't go wholly unappreciated," he said. "Even if you aren't interested."

"You know why," she said.

"I think you are misreading who has the social standing these days," he said. "It's not only that people would want me to justify why I was sullying myself with you; more people would want you to explain why you'd waste your time on me."

He could tell by the tiny sound she made and the way her fingers twitched in his that she'd never thought of it quite like that. If he were reading her quite right, a Draco Malfoy whom no one liked was far more appealing than the arrogant, popular rich boy he'd been. He wasn't above using that. "Death Eater, remember?" he said very softly.

"Your House – " she began but he cut her off.

"Will very likely pretend they don't see me," he said. "I was somewhat publicly on the losing side of this small war we just had and, thanks to the Mark on my arm, I can't recant in a way anyone would believe. I'm poison." The truth of that burned. "I will, Hermione, quietly likely be wholly friendless come September."

"Your skinny friend?" she asked.

"Theodore?" He wondered if she really couldn't quite remember Theo Nott's name or if she had some grudge that made her not want to voice it. "We've been friends long enough he may… but I wouldn't blame him if he cut ties. It would be the sensible thing to do, after all, if he wants a career after graduation."

"You'll have me," she said.

"You'll disappear up in Gryffindor," he said hating the way he was almost begging for reassurance. So much, he thought, for trying to manipulate her.

She stood up and yawned again and he stood up as well, ready to escort her to the hall that led to her room. "I won't," she said. "I mean, I will to live of course, but we'll…." She didn't seem to know what she wanted to say or promise and stopped talking. He followed in silence her to that invisible but well-known line that no Slytherin boy crossed for fear of the warding. She stopped when he did and, in the darkness of the common room, Hermione Granger leaned over to him and brushed her lips over his cheek.

It was an utterly chaste kiss and yet Draco Malfoy stood in near shock as the witch who'd given it to him disappeared into the shadows.


	17. Chapter 17

Hermione handed Draco the next cleaned Arithmancy book and he checked it for damage and sent it on it way. By unspoken agreement they'd left efficient cleaning behind and just sat together after breakfast, not quite touching but not across the room from one another either. "Are you taking this?" he asked, waving the next book she'd passed him in the air.

"Arithmancy?" she asked. He nodded and she said, "N.E.W.T. level. I don't know who else will be in the class, though. I don't think it tends to get a lot of students."

"I will," Draco said. "Probably Theo. Maybe some Ravenclaws." He confirmed the book in his hand was fine and sent it sailing away. "Do you want to plan a study group?"

"You and me?" Hermione had her head down over a book and her loose hair obscured whatever expression might reveal more than her neutral tone.

"And Theo," Draco said.

"Assuming he'd be willing to sit down at a table with a Mudblood," Hermione said as she shook the last of the broken bits of plaster from the book she was using to avoid looking at him.

"I don't think you should call yourself that," Draco said.

"Makes you uncomfortable?" she asked and now he could hear the knives in her voice.

"Yes." He plucked the book from her hand. "I am well aware what an arse I was. You needn't rub it in." He flipped through the pages and now he was using the book to hold his eyes captive. "Theo has, indeed, been raised as a blood purist, but I think he would be grateful to have a study partner. It's supposed to be a very difficult course."

"Especially if that study partner is a war heroine?"

Draco glanced up. She was quite right, of course. Theo was pragmatic enough to know being seen with Hermione Granger would help whitewash his own status and he'd never been the kind of brutal idealist the Carrows had been. Prejudiced, yes, but not a zealot. Hermione had her eyes narrowed in a knowing glare and he touched her knee. "If you'd rather he weren't there," he said, "I would understand."

She sighed and rubbed at her face. "No, it's… this year is going to be hard, isn't it?"

Draco lowered his head.

"I wasn't here," she went on, "we were out cold and hungry and angry and desperate but we weren't _here_. I've heard stories but… how bad was it, Draco?"

"It was bad," he whispered, a year of nightmares in his voice.

"Tell me." Her words were implacable and he shuddered but tried to find a way to explain.

"The Carrows," he began, "they were… they were crazy. I'm not being clever or hyperbolic. They were truly not well. The only thing that let anyone survive was that they weren't bright either." He could feel the tears beginning to burn behind his eyes. "Your friend Longbottom… he was incredible. He told them off, told them no, told them to burn in hell."

"You didn't." The words weren't even a question.

"You have to mean it." He wasn't sure she could hear him. "And I didn't. None of us did. Who wants to hurt first years? They're babies. Who could mean that?" The words were getting more choked. "But they made us do it and I didn't… I wasn't brave enough… we all learned to fake it. To say the words with no force and the victims learned to scream and wail even if it wasn't bad but sometimes I was so scared it had more force and – "

He looked up at her and he knew the tears were running now and he wanted desperately to flee. "I tortured little kids, Hermione." She held a hand he knew he didn't deserve out to him and he let himself take it. His head was on her knee before he spoke again, his voice as controlled and as dead as he wished he were. "I told you I've realized – far too late - that there are things a man shouldn't do even to survive."

She didn't let go of his hand. Didn't hurl abuse at him. Didn't do anything he expected or deserved.

All she said was, "I was right, then. It's going to be a very difficult year."


	18. Chapter 18

Hermione stood up and brushed imaginary dust off her trousers. Draco wondered if she realized she did that every time she transitioned from one place to another; it was a little tell he was coming to find enchanting. "Let's go," she said.

He looked at her standing over him then at the piles of Arithmancy books. "We have work," he said. The simple chore of sorting and cleaning books felt both impossible and inescapable. "We can't just skiv off," he said, helpless and caught between the witch and the task in front of him.

"I am feeling overwhelmed," she said, sounding not overwhelmed at all. "I'm about to have a breakdown. You're going to walk me back to the dungeon and keep me company because you're worried." She held a hand down to him and, nonplussed, Draco took it and rose to his feet.

"That is not at all what's happening," he said to her. "That is near to the opposite of what's happening."

"You're calling me a liar?" she asked him. "Maybe I'm just very good at hiding my upset. Stiff upper lip and all."

Draco found himself tricked into another wan smile. "You're something else," he said.

She squeezed the hand she still held in his. "This is just what Gryffindors are like," she said. "Maybe you can do that thing where you coax the elves to bring us something."

They made their way toward the exit and as they walked to the Slytherin dormitories he asked her why the elves were so wary of her and got the full story of S.P.E.W.. He found himself laughing at the way she mocked her own early adolescent certainties even as he was impressed by the way she'd kept the core of her values despite admitting her first attempts at righting oppressive wrongs had been misguided. They did run into Headmistress McGonagall on their way downstairs and she frowned at Hermione, a frown, Draco thought, that was all too knowing, and warned Hermione against taking on too much. "You've been through quite a bit," the woman said. "Give yourself space to recover."

"Draco's helping me," Hermione said.

Draco watched McGonagall's eyes widen just a tad at the way Hermione artlessly – or, perhaps, artfully - dropped his given name.

"I'm glad you two are getting on," was all the older woman said, however. "I've always thought you had a number of scholastic interests in common and it was unfortunate that things kept you from exploring those together."

"We're planning to set up a study group for N.E.W.T. Arithmancy," Hermione said. "And maybe a recovery group."

McGonagall nodded. "Miss Abbott is returning this fall and she wrote with a similar suggestion. I suggest you owl her."

"I'll do that," Hermione said.

Only after they'd reached the safety of the dungeon and Draco had found an elf eager to bring them sandwiches and lemonade did he turn to Hermione, his hand wrapped around his lunch, and ask, "Recovery group?"

She didn't answer at first. She took a long drink of the lemonade Draco found too sweet and then a bite of her sandwich. He watched her chew and swallow and considered that one, perhaps, shouldn't stare at a woman's mouth this avidly, this hungrily, but that bit of consideration was mostly subsumed by his nerves. A recovery group. What did she mean by that?

"It's been bad for everyone," she said at last. "Are we supposed to sit in classes and pretend none of it happened?"

"The Ministry might prefer that," Draco said.

"Arseholes," Granger said before she took another bite of her sandwich.

"Arseholes with power," Draco said.

Hermione set her sandwich down and looked at him. She was seated on the floor with her back against one of the leather couches and, seated across from her, he was trapped again by those wide, dark eyes. "I've spent the last few years learning that people with power tend to care more about protecting that power than anything else," she said. "I'm no longer especially deferential."

"I don't want to sit around in some group and talk about my feelings." Draco dredged his most arrogant sneer up, a remnant of a more innocent time, and put it on hoping she wouldn't see through it.

"It wouldn't be an abuse the Slytherins group," she said, reaching her hand out to rest on his extended ankle.

Another hope dashed, Draco thought.

"That's not what it would be like," she said.

He shook his head. "That's _exactly_ what it would be like," he said.

He wasn't sure what he expected her to do. Argue her point, perhaps, or scoff at his fears. He didn't expect her to pull herself forward so she was kneeling next to him. Didn't expect her to put her hands on each side of his face and murmur, "Trust me, Draco." Didn't expect her to press her lips, sweetened by lemonade, to his.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N – Off to get my hair made purple today. To answer a frequent question: I'm not sure how long this will go but my rough plans are to take it through 8**_ _ **th**_ _ **year.**_


	19. Chapter 19

He let himself note the gentle, cautious nature of the kiss before he pulled away. "I thought you didn't want that," he said. "Too much staring at the condescending pureblood and his so very fortunate pity date."

Her hands were still on his cheeks and though she flushed at his jibe she didn't remove them. "Or the condescending war heroine and her walk on the wild side," she suggested. "It will be awful."

"It will be the only good thing in a sea of awful," he corrected her. He went to put his hands along her back and was startled to discover he still had his lunch in them. He set it down and, with a tentative and uncomfortable attempt at a smirk, used his freed hands to tug the witch onto his lap. She didn't resist but settled herself and tipped her head back so her cheek was resting on his shoulder.

"You have the nicest shirts," she said as she rubbed her cheek against the fabric.

"I tortured children," he said.

"I know." She sounded sad and angry and like she might even understand in the tiniest of ways what that year had been like, what fear and desperation felt like as they crept into your bones, what the eyes of children looked like when they were relieved to paired up with you because you weren't Greg or Vince and what you did to them might hurt but it didn't feel like fire flaying your flesh from your bones even as it left no mark. That look of relief haunted him.

He sat, leaning up against the couch in the room where he'd made his home for seven years with Hermione Granger on his lap trying to think of anything other than the expressions on the faces of children at the other end of his wand. Hermione shifted and he noted her hair smelled of rosemary. He would have expected something floral rather than the sharp, piney herb; another way she surprised him, distracted him. "I like your hair," he said. "I mean, the smell. Your shampoo."

"My great big, bushy head?" she asked him and he made a strangled half growl and she took one of his hands in hers. "It's rosemary."

"I know," he said in as light a tone as he could muster. "I'm fairly decent at Potions, you might recall. Knowledge of herbs comes in handy when you're bent over a cauldron."

"It's for remembrance."

His fingers clenched tightly around hers. He knew that. "I wish I could forget," he said, voice still as light as he could manage. "I would die to forget."

"Also," she continued, "I like the smell." She squeezed his hand back. "And you'll never forget. At least, having been on the other side of the torturer's wand I know that I can't. I think it will be the same for you. And I would prefer you to live if you don't mind too terribly."

"What do I do?" he whispered. "What would have made it better for you? What would make it better for you now?"

She reached her free hand up to his face and turned it so he was looking down at her as she rested against him. "You aren't your aunt," she said. "You didn't mean it. Even when you were afraid you didn't really mean it."

"I still hurt them," he said.

"Amends, then," she said. "You figure out what needs doing and you do it."

"I don't know how," he said.

"I'll help," she said and then she guided his head back to hers and he brushed his lips across hers, then his nose against hers, then dropped a line of kisses along the edge of her jaw.

"People will hate you," he said. "They'll call you names. They'll think I've Imperiused you." He watched her close her eyes and take a deep breath. "And those are the people on your side. The ones on mine – "

"They'll sneer," she said. "And call me other names, though probably behind my back and not to my face."

"Not to mine either," he said. "At least not more than once. It will, as you mentioned, be awful."

She set a kiss at the very edge of his mouth and he parted his lips just a little and she sucked on his lower lip before opening her own mouth and letting him taste that lemonade again. When they broke apart she said, a little breathlessly, "It will be the only good thing in a sea of awful," and he was tricked into another smile.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N – The purple hair came out as it always does – quite dark so it blends into the black and when the sun hits it people see the purple. The pink tips are new and quite bright. I'll post a snap on tumblr**_.

 _ **More of this tomorrow :)**_


	20. Chapter 20 (Theodore Arrives)

Draco hesitated at the entrance to the common room then pushed open the door and waited for Hermione to pass though it. Once in the hall he took her hand and braced himself against imagined stares and catcalls as they headed to dinner. An afternoon of kissing had passed more quickly than time spent sorting books and he felt like they'd been in a lull, a precious lull, certainly, but one sure to end.

It wasn't the staff in the dining room who would end it, however. If they noted the pair holding hands at all it was with tired indifference. Everyone staying at the castle spent their days struggling to rebuild a school in too little time and the relationship of the two not-quite-students wasn't interesting enough to elicit comment. Even McGonagall merely blinked and then poured herself another glass of wine before returning to her discussion with Flitwick on the remaining fall staffing issues.

Draco and Hermione ate the day's offering and cleared their plate and were discussing whether it was a good night for stargazing when they entered the Slytherin common room to find a lanky boy sitting on one of the couches with his feet up on an ottoman he'd dragged over from a corner.

Draco dropped Hermione's hand out of shock at seeing anyone in what he'd come to think of as their space, a move she clearly misinterpreted because she looked from the boy on the couch to him and back again and then said, "I think I'll go read."

"Granger," the boy said with a polite nod. "The headmistress said you were staying here as well."

"She didn't mention you were coming, Nott," Draco said. If Draco had had a tail it would have been fluffed. If he had had feathers they would have been ruffled. As it was, lacking either of those things, his posturing was far more subtle but still unmistakable, at least to Theodore.

"No?" Theodore Nott painted a look of polite surprise on his face.

"Why are you here?" Draco asked, dropping onto the facing couch even as Hermione excused herself and walked down the hall to her room.

Theodore Nott watched her leave, his eyes on her until she disappeared into her room; Draco noted that the other Slytherin had positioned himself perfectly to watch the girls' corridor. "Nott Manor is too big and too empty," Theodore said once he heard the quiet click of Hermione Grangers's door closing. "I was beginning to lose my mind."

Draco nodded. The gesture was stiff because he was angry but he made it because he understood.

"I didn't expect to see that." Theodore nodded his head toward where Hermione had been. "Slumming?"

"Shut up, arsehole," Draco said, his hands curling into impotent fists. They both knew he'd never hit Theodore. Still, the vehemence of his response made Theodore's lips curve up in a small smile. "I mean it," Draco muttered at the sight of that grin.

Theodore held his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender before asking, "Is that something you plan to continue with once the proper school year starts?"

"If she'll let me," Draco said. "She seems to think I won't have the nerve to face down the social opposition."

"Smart girl," Theodore said.

"Fuck you."

"Don't make offers you have no intention of following up on," Theodore said, "I am well aware you like girls. It's one of the great tragedies of my life." He smirked. "That, along with the dearth of other options here at heterosexual Hogwarts, restricts me to the life of celibacy that, alas, I know so well."

"You are no more interested in me than you are in her," Draco snorted. "I think you once said if I were the last man on earth you'd reconsider women."

"You are somewhat prone to dramatics," Theo said. "And too thin."

"You've heard the truism of the pot and the kettle I assume," Draco said

Theo leaned forward and said, "I've missed you, you pale arsehole. You okay?"

Draco slouched in his seat and shrugged. "I'm here sorting books rather than letting my mother follow me from room to room and ask if I've got ague or scurvy or whatever she'd dredged up to explain why I might be less than perky instead of the actual cause of alternating rage and depression. So I'm ducky." He flicked his eyes toward Hermione's door. "Or I was."

Theodore shrugged. "I'll apologize to her. You'll snog her in front of me and I won't gasp in horror that you're sullying yourself with a woman. It'll be fine."

"How about you?"

Theodore shrugged again but said, "I brought whiskey. Want some?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N – The enchanted circle of solitude has been breached. As always, I adore your thoughts.**_


	21. Chapter 21 (The Sorting Feast: 1 of 3)

By the time Draco and Theodore had finished half the bottle, Draco was drunk enough to know better but also too drunk to stop himself and so he staggered to his feet and stumbled to the very edge of the warding line. Theodore stood behind him and, with no warning, gave him a brutal shove. Draco fell forward onto the carpeted floor, worn by generations of mostly pureblood girls, and began to curse.

"You could have killed me, you miserable bastard," he swore. "What if the warding was on?"

"They've turned them all off, all over the castle," Theo said with a drunken wave of his hand. "You're fine. I knew you'd be fine. Merlin. You're so fucking overwrought all the goddamned time. Go get your girlfriend so I can make nice and tell her I'm sorry for being imperfect."

Draco pulled himself to his feet and made his way with the careful precision of the inebriated to Hermione Granger's door and began pounding on the heavy wood with the side of his fist. "Hermione," he yelled, "Come out. Need to apologize."

He was raising his hand to hammer on the door again when it opened it and he blinked at the woman on the other side in some confusion. He knew how she dressed to sleep; he'd seen her in her pajamas and these were not what he'd seen before. When they'd gone stargazing she'd been disreputable and rumpled and beautiful and this woman in front of him was beautiful but not at all rumpled or disreputable. She was clad in something fitted and black that looked soft and her hair was pulled back into a neat and pretty braid. He narrowed his eyes and squinted at her trying to figure out why she looked so tidy. Behind him Theodore Nott, equally drunk, was leaning against the wall and trying to peer into her room.

"Let the bastard apologize," Theodore said. "Then come out and share the rest of the fire whiskey bottle with us, pretty, pretty girl."

"Pretty, pretty Mudblood, you mean," Hermione said, closing the door to her room behind her and standing the hallway glaring at both men.

"Oh, Granger," Theodore said. "No one's going to call you names." He smiled at her in a way he meant to be engaging and warm but that just looked sly. "If you don't come out Draco will pout all night."

"I don't think _Draco_ cares to – "

"Merlin fuck," Draco said, interrupting the bitter stream before she could really get started. "I'm sorry I let go of your bloody hand. I was just surprised to see this arsehole was all."

"He was," Theodore confirmed. "Told me to bugger off and that you were the love of his life and that I needed to make peace with that or he'd do something vague and ill-defined but surely unpleasant."

"I did not say she was the love of my life." Draco glared at his friend.

"I exaggerate," Theodore said, sweeping a dramatic, if somewhat ragged, bow toward Hermione. "It is true he never said that." Theodore took a large swallow from the glass he'd never set down. "Though, of course, you are."

Draco looked like he was searching for a way to escape and did actually begin edging back toward the main common room. Hermione sighed.

"You are both as transparent as glass," Theodore said in mock despair. "Come get drunk with us, little Gryffindor, and tell me how much you hate me for my House. I am here to be berated."

"Only if you tell me how much you hate me for my blood," she said, almost glaring at him.

He shrugged and made a shooing gesture to get both her and Draco to return to the place where there were seats and they, both bemused by Theodore, obeyed. "I do not hate your blood," Theodore said. "I do rather despise the Muggle world whence you came." He took a drink. "Muggles are dirty. Filthy. Dangerous. Like mad dogs; so fertile and unpredictable and everywhere. Best avoided lest they bite and pass on some vile illness. Or so I was taught." He shrugged. "In all fairness, I've never known one."

"A Muggle?" Hermione asked him, accepting the drink he poured and held out, "or a rabid dog?"

"Or even a Muggle-born." He smiled at her, an empty smile that could have cut glass. "Such would not have been permitted."

"They have ratty furniture in Gryffindor tower," Draco said, apparently apropos of nothing though Theodore gave him an amused and subtly grateful look for the change of topic. " _Ratty_."

"Why?" Theodore leaned back and smirked at Hermione. "You can fix anything with magic, repair it, clean it. Why have worn out things?"

"It's cozy," she insisted.

"I doubt it," Theodore said. "This is cozy." He waved his arm to indicate the mostly dark common room with its leather furniture, heavy woods and plush carpets.

"This is the antithesis of cozy," Hermione said.

"We should go see it," Draco announced. "We've shown you ours, now your turn to show us yours."

"My common room," Hermione clarified.

Theodore took a last swallow before he set his tumbler down and stood up. "Exactly. What did you think he meant?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N – To answer multiple, varyingly phrased reviews, yes, Theo is gay for the specific purpose of removing even the slightest concern that there will be a romantic triangle. He is explicitly not interested in Draco for the same reason. Draco and Hermione will have sufficient strains on their relationship between House prejudice, blood prejudice, and post-war trauma to not require a romantic rivalry to add drama. Plus, dramione readers are prone to share their disgust at the possibility of anyone moving in on their one true pairing with reviews like "ewwwww" and ones that call 11-year-old girls hussies for approaching a 12-year-old Draco and I wished to nip that in the bud at the outset._**

 ** _Also, because of my ongoing laptop issues I've had to post this using a different methodology. Please let me know if the format is wonky._**


	22. Chapter 22 (The Sorting Feast: 2 of 3)

The three of them tip-toed up to Gryffindor Tower, side-stepping debris and ignoring the curious portraits propped in stacks against walls. The Fat Lady still guarded the entrance but she just looked at Hermione and sighed rather than ask for a password. "Oh," she said in what sounded like resignation. "It's you."

The two boys scooted through the round hole after the portrait swung open, following the woman who hadn't even needed to offer a password to gain admittance. "Even the portraits like her," Theodore said in a stage whisper to Draco as he looked around the circular room. "What's she doing with you?" Draco smacked him in the arm.

Hermione turned to face them and waved her arms around. "This is it," she said. "Places to sit, a big fireplace, windows that actually let sunlight in. Cozy."

Theo walked over to one of the overstuffed armchairs and ran his fingers over the upholstery, which, contrary to Draco's assertion it was ratty, was in perfect condition. The room itself seemed mostly repaired, if dusty. Theodore lit a lumos and studied the scarlet tapestries on the walls and shrugged. "Doesn't all this red remind you a bit much of blood?"

Draco watched the way Hermione's shoulders tensed at that. "It didn't used to," was all she said. She tilted her head to the side and asked, an obvious challenge in her voice, "Did Draco invite you to our little Arithmancy study group?"

"Transparent as fucking glass," Theodore said. "Merlin, Draco, are you sure? Your mother will eat her alive."

"Non-responsive," Hermione said.

"Are all Gryffindors this direct?" he asked, sounding fascinated even in his drunken state. "I mean, do any of you have any sense of subtlety at all? I know Potter didn't, but are you _all_ like this?"

"Yes," she said, biting the word out. "We're the type who tilt at windmills and take on impossible quests and aren't you glad? Or did you, perhaps, hope we'd lose?"

Theodore flung himself down into one chair and stretched his impossibly long legs over a stuffed arm and let his head loll back so he could look at the ceiling. "Oh, sweetheart," he said. "If I'd wanted you to lose do you think I'd be up here telling you I'd be delighted to join your little study group? No one stupid enough to want what was, I suppose, my side to win would be able to handle that class."

Draco could see her exhale in what he suspected was a mixture of aggravation and relief.

"What about the Recovery Group," she said. She'd wandered over and was looking at old bits of parchment still pinned to a notice board and had let the words slide out as though they had no real import.

It was Theodore Nott's turn to stiffen. Draco stood, trapped between his best friend on the chair and whatever Hermione was to him at the wall. "Well done," Theodore said at last. "A quick knife when I'm not expecting it. Maybe you'll be able to stand up to dear Narcissa after all."

Hermione turned and tipped her head to the side. The inquisitive angle mocked the boy on the chair and he narrowed his eyes and said, his voice very low as he glared back at the witch, "Don't assume you were the only one who suffered, Granger."

"You want to tell me all about it?" she asked him. Draco held a hand out toward her but whatever war she and Theodore were waging, whatever testing of one another they were doing, he wasn't part of it.

"Is suffering going to be a competition?" Theodore asked her. "Do I get to be more virtuous in your eyes – more worth your precious time – if I'm hurting too? Or am I one of the damned because I happen to love a man who hates your very existence? How many generations do you think should get punished for the sins of the fathers? One? Two?" He laughed bitterly before he added, "I think seven is the traditional number."

"I lost my parents, my friends, was tortured," she said, flinging the words at him, daring him to respond. "I fought to protect your world and you people don't even want me in it. _Mudblood_."

"You win," Theo said. "All I did was torture children." The words tried to be light and casual and failed.

Hermione shook a little as if he'd slapped her at the sound of them but she didn't pull her eyes off Theodore. "You'll study with us?"

"If you'll have me, pureblood traitor and all. I'm the one who was locked away during battle because my own teachers thought I was a monster for refusing to hurl curses at my own father. I'm the one who's _lucky_ to be allowed back to school." The words were laced with so much rage Draco almost took a step away from the man who said them.

"You'll admit you know me in public?"

"I'll kiss the tips of your bloody fingertips if you want me to," Theo hissed the words out. 'You bitch' was unvoiced but hung in the air anyway. "Let's talk about what's really important, though. Let's talk about something that matters now a lot more than how solidly despicable I am. You plan on breaking Draco's heart?"

The last demand made Draco freeze. He'd been watching his friend at that moment and was unable to turn his head to look at Hermione, afraid of her response.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N – Thank you all for your lovely encouragement. The writing engine that drives productivity enough to allow for daily updates is driven by coffee and reviews._**

 ** _Special thanks to the guest reviewer who suggested I stop writing dramione; your comment inspired me to pencil some things into the outline once all the regular students, especially Ginny, return for classes._**


	23. Chapter 23 (The Sorting Feast: 3 of 3)

"Do you plan on breaking Draco's heart?"

Theodore's words seemed to hang in the air and Hermione flinched at the force of the demand. Theodore Nott, his legs still dangled over the arm of the red chair, had gone back to looking up at the ceiling and pretending to ignore her.

"No," she said. Then, "I think we should go back down. I'm not sure how structurally sound this tower is right now even if this room looks fine. I'd hate to survive the war and then die because two drunk boys wanted to go exploring."

Theodore pulled himself back to standing and gestured toward the portrait hole, still standing open. "I think I prefer our bloodless dungeon to this," he said. "Especially if the tower of the brave and the true might be on the verge of collapse."

"Do you ever say anything that isn't laced with a second meaning?" she asked Theodore as she passed. Draco followed the pair of them, glancing behind him at the room he assumed he'd never see again as they left and the portrait swung shut again.

"And there you go," Theodore said, "back to that blunt Gryffindor thing. And you were doing so well, too." He snorted as he loped back down the stairs. "I'd blame it on the Muggle thing, but the rest of your red and gold lot do it too."

Hermione scowled at the boy's back. Draco came up to stand next to her. "I'm sorry about him," he said. He wasn't really but it seemed the polite thing to say.

"Ron'll be worse," Hermione muttered, something of which Draco was quite sure. Still, he was oddly heartened that she was planning on having a relationship with him to which that horrid Weasley would object. "And Nott always seemed so quiet in classes."

"He's usually pretty withdrawn except with friends," Draco said as he stood there.

"Lucky me," Hermione said.

Draco wrapped his fingers around hers. "Want to go get that drink?" he asked her. The speed at which she took off toward what had been their refuge answered his question and he let out a low laugh as he kept up with her.

When they were back at the Slytherin dorm and Hermione muttered, "pureblood" to get the door to open Theo made another one of those rude snorts. "How is it you haven't changed that?" he asked.

"It reminds me where I belong," she said without looking at him. "And it's not here." She sat on one of the cold, leather couches and added, "I think you'd offered me a drink." Theodore already had it poured and handed Hermione's glass to Draco, who'd snagged his own tumbler and joined her. The way she cuddled into his side as soon as he sat down would have been far more pleasant if he weren't quite sure she was doing it more to make a point to Theodore than out of a genuine urge to get closer. Still, he had an armful of warm girl and those black pajama were as soft as they'd looked. He nuzzled at the side of her neck before taking a sip of his whiskey.

Theodore let out an exasperated huff at her posturing. "Granger, if you're waiting for me to offended that you and Draco are all touchy-feely you'll be waiting a long time."

"You hate me because I'm a Mudblood," she said. "You all do."

"I'm not my father," Theodore said, "And you hate me because I'm a Slytherin."

She looked down. "I did," she admitted. "Last year, the year before, I did."

"Puts you in good company," Theodore said. He'd sat down and seemed suddenly tired as if whatever energy had fueled his trek to Gryffindor Tower and their confrontation there had burned away and left him nothing but cold ashes waiting to be tossed away. "Everyone does."

"You're a bunch of – "

"Vile, racist pricks?" Theodore asked her. When she nodded he shrugged. "I'm not arguing with you," he said. "But how would you know?"

"I… you said things," she said. "All of you."

" _Draco_ , king of subtle, said things," Theodore corrected her, "and look at you, all pressed up against him like he's wonderful." He leaned his head back. "Easy to offer forgiveness to the boy you want to shag, isn't it?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N – Another day, another chapter of Rebuilding_**.


	24. Chapter 24

Hermione managed to get drunker than she'd ever been in her life. She'd never really participated in the parties in Gryffindor Tower, always too rule-abiding, too angry at Ron, too afraid of what she'd say or do if she lost inhibitions but here Theo just kept filling her glass with some charm he knew and at one point she stood up and the room began to weave around her and she sat back down and said, a giggle in her voice, "I don't think I'll be sorting books tomorrow."

"So irresponsible," Theo said. She and Theo had been exchanging barbs all night and they'd slowly shifted from pointed weapons to almost good-natured ribbing. Almost. Draco had his hands around her waist under the top of the most flattering pair of pajamas she owned, things she'd put on just in case he came calling to apologize. She'd planned on rejecting his apology and being very, very unattainable and instead she'd somehow ended up on the couch, barely able to stand, with Draco Malfoy's hands stroking her skin and Theodore Nott goading her.

"I am very damaged by the war," she told Theodore Nott now, trying to keep her words from slurring together. "Very, very damaged. McGonagall told me to take care of myself. I think a day to sleep this off is – "

"Sleep it off with Draco?" Theo interrupted her.

" – a very good idea. Very res-pon-si-bull. And not with Draco. That would _not_ _–_ "

"Be responsible?" Theo tried to stand up himself and rethought that idea and sat back down again. "If not now, when? Wards are down, no one's around – "

" _You're_ around."

Theo looked at Hermione. "But we're bestest of friends now," he said and she snorted. "Study partners. We're going to talk about our _feelings_ in your Recovery Group, or sit there and not, but we'll be all bonded with our togetherness. Don't worry your pretty little head over me."

"I wasn't," she said. "You just…" she batted Draco's hand away from her stomach and he made a bit of a pout before he wrapped his arms around her and tugged her against him. "You made a statement what was inaccurate and so I corrected it."

"Do you actually have friends?" Theo asked her. "Curious minds want to know."

"Harry and Ron," she said, glaring at him. Draco said, "Theodore," with a groan at the same time.

"Is he always an arsehole like this?" Hermione asked.

"No," Draco muttered. "I don't know what his problem is."

"You know what?" Theo stood up, almost fell down, and braced himself against a chair. "Let me try this again." He stumbled toward the couch and stuck his hand out toward Hermione. She didn't take it but he left it there, hanging in the air. "Granger. McGonagall told me you'd be here. I don't think we've ever been properly introduced. Name's Nott." He paused and, when she still didn't move to take his hand added, a bit more desperately, "Theodore, really."

Very slowly Hermione put her hand in his. "Nice to meet you, Theodore" she said. "I guess you're here to help with the books."

"Maybe not tomorrow," Theodore said. "Even with a hangover potion…" he trailed off and released her hand and stood over her as if he weren't sure what to do now.

"Are you going to be in Advanced Arithmancy?" Hermione asked him.

"Yes," he said as he fell back into his seat. "Advanced Potions and Runes also."

"Maybe we could study together," Hermione suggested. "I'm in all of those."

"I'm not in Runes," Draco said.

"That sounds good," Theodore said. "If you're willing to be seen with a Slytherin. We're all a bit persona non grata these days."

"That doesn't seem quite fair," Hermione said. She glanced at Draco. "I don't really care what people think, so if you're okay with me, I'm okay with you."

"I care very much what people think," Theodore Nott said. "So does Draco."

"Then they can bloody well go through me," Hermione said. The two boys, one holding on to her and one studying her with an expression she didn't think she'd have been able to decipher sober, much less in this state, both began to laugh. "What?" she demanded.

"You're just very unexpected, Miss Granger," Theodore Nott said. "Given all I did, very, very unexpected."

"You didn't do anything," she muttered. At his dark look she amended her statement. "Nothing you weren't forced to do."


	25. Chapter 25

Hermione woke up to a headache and the sudden gratitude that the Slytherin dorms were dark. There were, she mused, some benefits to being in a dungeon under the lake after all. She sat up and made an inarticulate sound of protest at how unpleasant that movement was and went to pull herself out of the bed and down the hall to the girls' shower only to realize there was a body in her bed.

She narrowed her eyes as she regarded the very asleep, very blond boy who had a pillow over most of his head, leaving tufts of hair poking out, and one arm dangling down to the floor. She twitched the blankets away and confirmed that he was fully dressed as, she noted with a quick, nervous look down, was she.

That was a relief. That was better than the alternative.

She tried to reconstruct how she'd ended up in a bed with Draco Malfoy and, if it wasn't quite a mystery, it did seem, as she thought about it, like something that she should have stopped at the time. Theodore Nott and how he'd made her glass bottomless had been a bad idea. The way she'd let Draco Malfoy glom onto her neck had been a bad idea. The way she'd – oh _Merlin_ – shared embarrassing stories with them about her time in that tent with two boys had been a very bad idea indeed. But that all paled compared to the fact she hadn't sent Draco Malfoy away after he'd escorted her to her room. "A gentleman always sees a lady home," he'd informed her in the very serious tones of a drunk. A gentleman also, apparently, checked a lady's room for boggarts, and tucked her into bed, and kissed her forehead, and then lay down for just a moment because the room was spinning.

She climbed over him, cringing at what that did to her, and his only reaction was to grunt and turn over; she stopped at the door and eyed him with a smile that, despite her pounding head, she couldn't quite make go away. "You're an idiot," she muttered as she stumbled down the hall.

When he returned having discovered that no, a shower was not going to be sufficient to this hangover, Draco had rolled over again and the pillow had fallen to the floor. As she put her things away she looked at the boy – man really – asleep in her bed. She supposed some people were beautiful asleep. Harry hadn't been. Ron hadn't been. It would seem that Draco Malfoy was the third in her series of men who looked more like fools in their sleep than anything else. His jaw was slightly open and his neck was crooked in a way she suspected would hurt when he woke up.

She contemplated waking him and then decided she cared more about finding a pain potion. If Theodore Nott had gotten her that drunk and hadn't packed hangover remedies along with that whiskey she would have things to say to him.

Rude things.

She stalked toward the common room, head pounding with each step, where she was met by an abominably cheerful Theodore Nott who said not a word but just held a glass with some potion in it toward her. She grabbed it and downed it and nearly sagged with relief when it worked almost instantly.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"I think I might hate you," she said. Theo's face immediately became guarded again and she shoved the glass back into his hand. "It's a _joke_ ," she said. "I'm _teasing you_."

He relaxed a fraction and said, "I knew that."

"Over-sensitive much?" she asked.

He shrugged. "You have your issues, Granger. I have mine."

"Hermione," she said. "I don't like being called by my family name anymore."

"Then you have to call me Theo," he said. "Otherwise I'm being rude."

"Oh, well, we mustn't have that," she said. "Theodore Nott, rude to me. The world might stop in shock."

"Now who's over-sensitive?" he murmured.

She was tricked into a laugh and looked back the hall toward her room. "Do we wake Draco or go to breakfast without him?" she asked.

Theodore summoned another vial of the hangover potion and handed to her. "Leave this with a note," he suggested, "and let him sleep it off. He's not exactly a morning person."


	26. Chapter 26

Hermione filled her plate with some sliced fruit, a piece of toast, and a dollop of marmalade and joined Theodore Nott at the table.

"Coffee? Tea?" he asked and when she gave him a narrowed eyed look of near disbelief he said, "I'm going to go get myself a cup and if you want one I'll get you one too. It's not a marriage proposal, just basic courtesy."

Hermione could feel a burn crawl up her neck and into her cheeks as she muttered, "Coffee'd be great. Thank you." While he was gone she found herself wishing she could just pull out a book and read it but that would be so utterly rude she couldn't so instead she stared first at her own plate, and busied her hands spreading the marmalade on her toast, and then at his plate, noting he'd gone for a full breakfast, then over at the staff table which, other than Professor Flitwick, who had his head buried in the paper, was empty.

She let out an audible sigh and then startled when Theodore reached over her shoulder to set her coffee down. He sat down across from her and they both looked at one another.

"So," he said.

"So." Hermione looked at his eggs and tomatoes. "You're hungry."

"I haven't been eating well at home," he said. "It's hard to eat when you're alone."

She looked at the thin - scrawny even - man and blinked a few times. He couldn't really stand to miss meals. He saw the assessing glance and exhaled noisily. "I do realize I'm thin," he said.

"Too thin," Hermione said.

"Says the woman all cozied up with Draco," Theo said. "I think you might like them a little on the slight side, sweetheart."

Hermione pursed her lips and picked up the coffee he'd brought her. After she took a sip she said, "Thank you."

Theo looked up from his plate.

"For the coffee," she explained.

He shrugged. "Thank _you,"_ he said.

"For what?" she asked.

He looked back down before he said, "For not being a total bitch to Draco. Or to me."

Hermione took a bite of her toast and thought about how loud chewing could be and how difficult swallowing. "Yeah," she said at last. "It's just manners. It's not a marriage proposal or anything."

Theo nearly choked on his eggs. When he finally stopped coughing he gasped out, "Oh Merlin, the looks on his parents' faces. I wish I could be there for that conversation."

"We're not getting married," Hermione protested. "I don't even know if we're dating."

"He's in your bed," Theo said. "Right now. I'd say you're dating."

"That was a fluke," Hermione muttered. "It won't happen again."

"Yes it will," Theo said. He rested his elbows on the table making Hermione stare. "I know," he said, following her gaze and smirking a little. "My father wouldn't approve. Of course, he wouldn't approve of my talking to you and apparently indulged in murder for fun so I'm considering that his obsession with table manners might have been a focus on the wrong things."

It was one of those statements to which there was no good reply so Hermione just sat, silent, and waited.

"You are dating," Theo said at last. "And it will happen again. And I know this because if it had been me you would have kicked me out no matter how pathetically drunk I was."

He took a drink of his tea and a bite of eggs, then another, before he asked her, "You do really care about him, don't you?"

"I already answered this," she said uncomfortably. "Why are you so protective of him anyway?"

"Why are you so protective of Harry Potter?" Theo asked.

"He's my best friend," Hermione said, her eyes sparking in a way that either Ron or Harry would have recognized meant danger. "A lot of things in his life are shite, he needs someone to -." She stopped talking. "Oh," she said.

"Yeah," Theo said.

"Things in your life are shite too, aren't they?" Hermione asked, her voice very soft.

"I'm a wealthy man," Theo said. "Heir to an ancestral near-palace. House elves, gardens, vaults over-flowing with gold and gee-gaws and whatever my heart desires that money can buy is mine."

Hermione just looked at him and he sighed. "And my father, the murdering Death Eater - "

"Whom you love," she said.

"He's my father," Theo said simply. "I didn't see that part of him. I saw the man who taught me to fly and who listened to my piano recitals and who - " He choked and stopped talking for a moment. "I didn't know," he said. "I know that no one believes me but I didn't know. He was just… and now he's in prison, forever, and… and… Draco's all I have. My best friend, the only person who knows… he's it."

"Goyle?" Hermione asked.

"Is a fucking moron," Theo said in disgust. "And Crabbe, also a moron, by the way, is dead."

Hermione reached her hand across the table and set it on his. "Thanks for getting my coffee," she said again.

"Not a big deal," he said but he turned his hand up and held hers for a moment, his fingers tightening around hers."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I was going to skip to when Draco pulls his hungover self out of bed and joins them but vanitu-and-other-vices on tumblr asked if she got a Theo/Hermione heart-to-heart over breakfast and so…_**


	27. Chapter 27

The three of them fell into an easy working rhythm by the early afternoon. Draco had arrived shortly before lunch, his hair falling into his eyes and a muttered, "Thanks for the painkiller," on his lips. He'd given Theo and Hermione a sour look as they grinned at one another, not wholly thrilled with the way they were bonding over his obvious hangover, but Hermione had brushed her lips over his cheek and he had briefly buried his face in her hair and they had all moved to sorting and cleaning the books with no further rancor and no mention of where he'd spent the night.

Hermione was standing between the pair, all of them with their backs to the library door, when they heard it open. None of them turned; Madam Pince came in and out throughout the day, clearing the books they'd set aside for repair to a back office and even Headmistress McGonagall stopped by at least once a day. That made the cold words such a shock that they all spun in unison.

"Get away from her."

Hermione spoke first. "Ron." She sounded genuinely pleased to see him and took a step toward the man and away from her co-workers.

"What are you doing?"

Draco watched her shoulders tense and marveled to himself that Weasley didn't seem to notice what appeared to be an obvious warning sign. "I'm helping to restore the library," Hermione said. "You knew I was coming up to Hogwarts to work on the clean up."

Draco took a step forward and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. He wasn't blatant enough to stare at Weasley while he did it but the subtle gesture wasn't lost on the other man who reacted with what Draco considered to be predicable outrage. Ron Weasley seemed to be be gathering his energy and preparing to release it at once. Draco felt Hermione brace herself against the worst and was reminded of the way his mother had tensed against the Dark Lord.

"Well. It didn't take _you_ long to move on, did it?" Draco waited for the woman under his hand to move away and placate the man who'd been her friend the whole of her time in the wizarding world but, if anything, she shifted to be slightly closer to his side and Draco heard a subtle intake of breath from Theo.

"There was nothing to move on from, Ron," Hermione said. "We never had anything but friendship." She took a moment and said, "I thought we had agreed on that."

Ron's eyes were fixed on the place where Draco's hand lay against Hermione. "Can't we speak away from these snakes?"

"No." Hermione's answer was simple. "We've already said everything there is to say that requires privacy. I told you I needed a break from you and instead you've followed me here."

"We could go," Theo offered but Hermione shook her head.

"Are you really _with_ him?" Draco saw Weasely's lips curl in a gesture of disgust. Hermione narrowed her eyes and Weasley clearly knew her well enough to read an answer in that. It was an answer he didn't like. "I thought we had something, Hermione; you can't forgive me one moment of weakness but you can forgive this tosser years of taunting you and hating you for who you were?"

"Ron –"

He cut her off. "How is he acceptable when you've made it clear you can't trust me? You can't trust me but you can trust a fucking _Death Eater_?"

"You left us!" The words exploded out of Hermione with such force Ron took a step backward. "You abandoned us!"

"I came back," Ron yelled.

"You always come back," Hermione conceded. "You're always there in the end."

"Why isn't that good enough?" Draco looked down at the floor, embarrassed by the naked pleading in the other man's voice. He didn't like Ron Weasley – he never had – but it was painfully obvious the man loved the woman who hadn't moved away from his own side during the confrontation.

"Because I want someone who will be there in the middle as well," Hermione said in a voice that spoke of heartbreak. "Someone I can trust not to leave in a fit of rage."

"Someone like him." Raw hatred there, Draco thought.

"Draco has his faults," Hermione began.

"I'll say," Ron muttered.

"But do you know what he doesn't do?" Hermione asked. Ron didn't answer and she continued on relentlessly. "He doesn't abandon the people he loves. Not ever. Not for anything."

"Oh, he'll kill for them," Ron sneered in agreement. "Are you already sharing a bed, Hermione? Are you stupid enough to think this snake _loves_ you?"

Draco wondered again how Ron could possibly be so blind as to miss the obvious warning signs in the woman's posture. "He woke up in my bed this morning, yes," she said very cooly.

That broke something in Ron Weasley. Draco stood there and watched it shatter and watched the man's eyes shutter against the woman he'd come to see. "Fuck you!" He said. "Death Eater's slag."

Theo took a step toward the fuming man. "I don't think that was called for," he said in a low voice. "I don't know exactly what happened with you and Granger, but there's no need to be calling her names."

"Death Eater," Ron spit at him.

"Ron!" Hermione said his name more sharply this time.

"No," Ron spun to glare at her. "I really thought we could try again. I thought I'd give you another chance - "

"You'd give _me_ another chance?" she repeated, her own fury growing again and pushing out her sorrow.. "You were the one who left _me_. Left _us_."

"Harry's over it," Ron said.

"Harry wasn't thinking of marrying you." She almost screamed the words and Theo and Draco both took a step back.

"So you'd rather fuck a Death Eater," Ron said. "Is that it?"

"Get out." Hermione's hands were balled into fists at her side. "Get out now and don't come back."

"Oh, you can count on that," Ron said. "We're done."

He slammed the door behind him and Draco, Theo and Hermione were left standing in the library.

"So," Hermione said into the shocked silence. "Do you think we'll finish the Arithmancy books today?"


	28. Chapter 28

"Do you want to tell me what that was all about?" Theo asked the question as Hermione waved away his offer of a bottle of fire whiskey with a grimace of remembered pain.

"Not really," she said. "Draco, do you think you could get the elves to bring us tea. I think I'm a bit more in the way of a nice cup of chamomile than getting pissed again."

Draco nodded but before he could move to do what she'd asked she said, "That was just a man with whom I did not have a relationship ignoring my clearly stated request that he give me some space. That's all."

"Mmm," Theo said as he poured himself a drink of something that was quite plainly not chamomile tea. "And that thing where you threw Draco in his face?"

"I did nothing of the sort," Hermione said. At Theo's look she slouched a little and muttered, "Maybe a little, but he had no business telling me what I could and couldn't do." She fussed with her hair just to have something to do with her hands as Theo sipped from his glass and Draco requested the tea. "Stupid elves," Hermione muttered. "Won't bring me so much as a spare towel but they'll give him anything he asks for."

"Gives you a reason to be nice," Draco said as he settled back down next to her. "I'm your source for tea and chocolate." He reached toward her, his hands hesitant until she leaned back against him. Then he wrapped his arms around her with a little more confidence.

"I didn't like the way he looked at you," Hermione said.

"Like we should both go back under our rock?" Theo asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Get used to that," Draco said. "That's how everyone will look at me." He felt her move in protest and he said, "They will."

Hermione leaned up against his chest and settled the side of her face against his shirt. Sad, Draco thought, almost forlorn. "It'll be all right," she said. "Eventually."

"No it won't," Theo said. He'd made steady progress on his glass and was eyeing the bottle again. Draco wondered how many the man had brought with him to Hogwarts and suspect the answer was 'a lot'. "At least, though, I know you meant it last night when you said you weren't going to break Draco's heart."

"I think I said too many things last night," Hermione muttered.

Draco thought of some of the stories she'd told about her travels during the war, stories clearly chosen because they were funny or embarrassing and free of the horror and fear he knew had to have been in every step that whole year, and said, "Oh, I could hear a few more. Any more stories about Harry trying to wash his things in a stream and finding out – "

"No!" Hermione took her small fist and hit him on the leg. "I want you to pretend you never heard any of that."

"What if Potter and I become friends," Draco teased her, feeling fairly safe knowing that would never happen. "Can I admit I know the state of his –"

"No." She hit him again. "Last night didn't happen."

"Uh huh," Draco said. "Then how come I woke up in your bed?"

Hermione groaned and Theo laughed. "Nothing happened," she muttered. "We were both way too drunk to –"

Draco eyed the tea pot that had magically appeared on the table in front of them. "Tea tonight," he said, making the words suggestive. "We won't be –"

Hermione tried to sit up and he tightened his grip on her, suddenly afraid he'd pushed too hard. She made a grouchy noise but lay her head back down; he squelched the visceral feeling of relief. "I like you, Draco Malfoy," she muttered. "But I don't think we're exactly at the sleeping together stage of a relationship."

"No, Theo said. Pouring himself another drink. "You're just at the defending him to one of your best friends and getting called a slag in the process on his behalf stage." He took a sip. "Where is that stage, exactly. Before or after the telling your parents stage?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I wanted to answer a question that showed up in a few reviews, namely why doesn't Draco defend Hermione more in the last chapter, why is he so passive? He's suffering depression, which tends to put out people's fire, and he's still hungover despite the pain potion. Plus, he's smart enough to know when to shut up by this point._**


	29. Chapter 29

Hermione tuned her face into Draco's shirt when Theo asked about parents and Draco said, his voice quiet but laced with an obvious warning, "She had to obliviate her parents to protect them in the war. She can't tell them about me."

Hermione felt his arms tighten around her; she hadn't expected him to be quite so protective. That was something new. That was something… pleasant. She lay with her face hidden in his t-shirt and considered how much she liked it – how _nice_ it was – to have someone defend her to his best friend.

That best friend murmured, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Most people don't," Draco said, still holding onto her.

She could hear the sound of Theo pouring more whiskey into his glass and there was silence until he asked, "How about your parents? Do you plan to tell them?"

"Yes." The answer was short but sounded less decisive than such a brief answer should. After a pause Draco added, his voice more of a mutter, "Eventually."

She picked up her head to look at him and he met her eyes with his own grey ones. "This is just so good right now," he whispered. "It feels…fragile. It feels like something – a baby bird maybe – that I want to hold very carefully in my hands so it doesn't get bruised or hurt or startled enough to fly away. My breath is caught in my throat and my heart is pounding and I don't want anything bad to happen."

The dark room seemed to close in around Hermione as she listened to his words and her own breath caught. "Your parents will certainly ruin the moment," Theo said, ruining it himself. "Your mother will worry you've become unstable because of the war – "

"Which would not be that far off," Draco muttered.

"- and that that's why you're dating a filthy Muggle-born." Theo obviously didn't miss the way Hermione stiffened even in the dim light because he said, "You know it's how they think. Not wanting the Dark… that one to win doesn't mean they suddenly turned into crusaders for Muggle rights."

"I know," Hermione said.

"And your father," Theo continued, "He'd – "

"He'd probably think the worst," Draco interrupted his friend. "I'd rather not – "

"Or he might congratulate you on being _so clever_ as to get little miss war heroine on your side," Theo overrode whatever Draco planned to say. "He might remind you that of course you can't _marry_ her – always pure or whatever your stupid motto is – "

"Purity always conquers," Draco said.

" – but a public affair might be just the thing."

There was another long silence and Hermione listened to the rhythm of Draco's heart until he said, as if he were afraid she wouldn't believe him, "That's not why I… you… it's not because you're Potter's best friend." He didn't seem to know what to say. She picked her head up and scooted up, pulling herself along him until she could press her lips to his. He cradled his hands behind her head as if she were, indeed, a tiny bird that might flit off if he moved too suddenly and let his tongue lick at her lower lip and then brush against hers.

"Merlin," Theo said with amusement, "get a room you two. You're both sober tonight and the wards are still down."

"Don't be such an arsehole," Draco muttered in between kisses. "Just because you're cursed to be alone again this year doesn't mean the rest of us have to be."

Hermione turned to look at Theo. "Alone?" she asked him. "No girls who like you enough?"

Draco snorted against her ear and Theo raised a glass. "Didn't you know, Granger?" he asked. "I don't like girls."

"Oh," she fumbled with what to say next and settled on, "No boys then?"

"No one else at Hogwarts is exactly out," Theo said, "and I don't feel like being someone's dirty little secret." He took another long drink. "That leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth."

"Kind of like – "

"Are you really going to say that?" Theo asked. "In front of an actual, bona fide lady?"

"I did live with two boys in a tent for almost a year," Hermione pointed out.

"Still," Theo shook his head. "Are you sure you want this one? He has no manners at all. Uncouth. Vulgar. Crude. You could do better."

"Yeah," she said before she returned to kissing the one in question. "I'm sure."

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Another day, another chapter of Rebuilding plus my periodic ridiculous mumblings about tumblr and reviews. In order to get this out at this pace I just can't answer every review (though I thrill to every one of them) but I do get to every tumblr ask.**_


	30. Chapter 30

"What are you doing?"

Hermione had, to Draco's disappointment and relief, refused to let him join her in her bed again and he'd come out of the room he was now sharing with Theodore to find her at a table with parchment and quill out.

"I know you have a reputation as a bit of a swot," he added, "but classes haven't even started yet."

She gave him a look of both fondness and annoyance. "It's not homework," she said. "I'm writing Harry. After Ron's little surprise visit yesterday I'm sure he got an earful." She frowned and cast a charm to clean up an inkblot. "If I'd realized he planned to show up I would have written Harry before he… ugh." She crossed a line out. "I would have written him eventually anyway but we just… why am I supposed to give them updates on my personal life like this? I don't know what Harry and Ginny are up to –"

"I can guess," Draco smirked even as he moved out of her reach just in case.

" – and I don't want to know." She added another line to her note.

"Do I get to know what you're telling him?" Draco asked. "He's not my biggest fan."

Hermione shrugged and slid the note toward him. "I'll make a clean copy once I'm sure what I'm saying," she said as he eyed the many crossed out lines.

 _Harry, As I'm sure Ron has told you by now, Draco is up here at Hogwarts helping with the restoration too. I know you two have never been friends but I've gotten to know him and I don't want any grief about who I choose to spend time with. The war is over. If you come visit, please don't bring Ron. I don't care to be called a slag again. I miss you. Love, Hermione_

Draco set it down and took a deep breath. "Do you think he'll come up?" he asked.

"Does it sound okay?" Hermione asked at the same time.

"Yes," they both said.

"I don't want to," she hesitated. "I don't want to make this thing a big deal and then have it not be," she said. "I don't want to… does it seem like I'm hiding you?"

Draco thought of the way he was afraid to even tell him parents he was talking to Hermione Granger, Potter's Mudblood, much less the way he looked for her every morning and wanted her skin against his, even if it were just interlaced fingers, all day. "No," he said. "I don't think it seems like you're hiding me."

"I'm not ashamed of you," she said, protesting, he thought, perhaps a little bit too much.

"I know you're not," was all he said. "Theo's passed out. Do you want to get some breakfast?"

"Let me make a copy first," Hermione said, "and then take it up to the owlery." She waved her wand and did a series of incantations Draco didn't know but that he vowed to learn as he watched the way they cleaned up her rough draft and turned it into a neat letter. He could have used that trick when writing essays.

By the time they'd walked up to the owlery, where only a few owls sat on perches and broken remnants of stands littered the floor, tied the note to the leg of an owl who gave them as close to a look of lazy resignation as an owl could muster, and made it back to the dining area, Theo had roused himself. He had a cup of coffee in front of him as well as some dry toast and a copy of the _Prophet_. He held the paper out toward Hermione but she shook her head and went to the sideboard to help herself to some eggs and fried tomatoes. "Can I get you anything?" she asked Draco but he didn't respond.

She glanced back at the table where the boys were huddled over the paper. Draco looked up a her with a look of guarded fury overlaying despair. "Hermione," he said. "I think you should look at this."

She carried her plate, along with a second cup of coffee for Draco, back to the table and took the _Prophet_ from then with some reluctance. She really didn't want to know what people were saying about the war and the aftermath; half of it was lies and the other half truths so slanted they might as well be lies.

She read the headline of the article Draco was pointing to first once, then again. She skimmed the article in a growing rage and only then spoke.

"That fucking bastard," she said.


	31. Chapter 31

Hermione glared down at the article. _Is_ W _ar Heroine Hermione Granger Suffering Imperius Curse?_ She looked over at the table table Headmistress McGonagall usually sat at but the woman either hadn't come to breakfast yet, or, as was more likely the case, had already left.

"I am going to kill him," Hermione said, her voice low and shaking. "How _dare_ he?"

"I suspect we're in for a few owls today," Theo said. He glanced at Draco who was paler than usual, then at Hermione, who looked like she was so angry she was about to burst into furious tears. "Can I do anything?"

"Probably not," Hermione said. They all looked back at the lead paragraph.

 _Everyone was surprised when war heroine Hermione Granger abandoned her friends after the war and disappeared into Hogwarts. She said she was returning to the school to help with post-war restoration but no one has sighted her there despite regular Ministry work trips to the hallowed halls of the venerable school. No one, that is, until her former fiancé and fellow Order of the Phoenix member Ron Weasley went to the school, worried for his friend's well being. "She was holding hands with Draco Malfoy," Weasley said, "and told me to get out." Draco Malfoy was found not guilty in his post-war trial because he was underage at the time of his war crimes, crimes that included keeping a woman under the Imperius for almost a year._

Draco cleared his throat. "Would it be easier if I went back to the Manor?" he asked.

"Don't you dare," Hermione hissed. "You are going to stand at my side and hold my hand as we force them to print a retraction." She picked up a fork and stabbed it into her eggs. The tines hit the plate with a scraping, screeching sound that made all three of them flinch. "I am going to make that… that…that –"

"Shitehead?" Theo suggested.

"Arsehole," was Draco's input and it clearly wasn't a question.

"- Petulant, jealous, _childish_ fool regret he did that," Hermione said. She took a bite of her eggs and chewed them, every movement of her jaw telegraphing how angry she was, how hurt. Draco watched her blink her eyes with the heavy movement of someone fighting back tears and felt a familiar urge to hex Weasley. This time, though, that feeling came from his fury that the rotter had deliberately hurt the woman sitting at the table with him.

"How dare he," Draco whispered, looking at her. "What a shite friend."

"A man in love," Theo said. He didn't finish the thought but Draco nodded.

"Still," he said.

"To go to Rita Skeeter," Hermione said, cutting her tomato and staring at her plate, letting her hair hang down in what Draco considered a transparent attempt to hide how upset she was. Gryffindors, he thought with a tightness in his chest he was still getting used to. They were so easy to read, so vulnerable. And now his parents would know. At least he knew they'd wait for him to tell them before acknowledging the liaison. Maybe it was better this way; one silve lining was it would give his parents time to think through their reaction to what he was sure they would consider a mistake. A misalliance.

"Well," Theo said, poking at his dry toast with displeasure, "he's made a mistake. It's easy enough to prove you aren't under the Imperius and then he'll look like nothing but a jilted lover and they'll look like speculative idiots who can't do basic research." He glanced at Hermione. "Do you want to sue them for slander?"

"I can't afford that," Hermioen said with a snort. "No, I'll have to resort to – "

"I can," Theo said softly.

She jerked her head up and looked at him. "Draco's my best friend," Theo said. "My only friend, really, and your little ex just went after him too."

"You don't have to do that," Draco said.

"I wasn't asking you," Theo snapped.

Hermione pushed her plate away and Draco gathered it up and stood to clear the dishes. "Let's go see what's come in the post," Hermione said without responding to Theo's offer. "I'm sure it will all make for absolutely fascinating reading."

Her plan to wallow in the inevitable hate mail, however, was forestalled by Headmistress McGonagall who stopped the trio in the hall and mentioned she had, with the exception of a note from Harry for Hermione, taken the liberty of disposing of the barrage of letters. "I've invited an Auror to come up this afternoon," she said, her lips tight, "as well as that wretched reporter. We'll make short work of this accusation and then things can return to normal. Be in my office at 3."

Hermione nodded but as the woman walked away she said, leaning against Draco, "I think this is normal now."

Draco tightened his grip on her hand and Theo said, "I'd like to finish the Arithmancy books this morning and start on Runes after lunch. What do you think?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another day, another chapter. Your sweet reviews are better than purring kittens and more energizing that ice coffee with sugar._**


	32. Chapter 32

Hermione and Draco appeared in McGonagall's office on time where they found the Headmistress, an Auror, and Rita Skeeter waiting for them. Hermione had transfigured a cup to the sort of jar one might use to can pickles before the meeting but had refused to explain why.

The tired and bored looking Auror pronounced Hermione as free of the Imperius Curse in under five minutes. Hermione turned to the reporter who had a sly look on her scheming face and said, "Now about that retraction."

"I didn't say anything that requires retracting," Rita Skeeter said, her eyes gloating with a mean smirk. "People _are_ worried about you and Mr. Malfoy _did_ Imperius people during the war." She patted her hair. "It's hardly my fault if people came to the conclusion you would have to be Imperiused to want to hold the little Death Eater's hand." She leaned forward. "Perhaps you'd consider giving me an exclusive interview about your post-war romance?"

Draco tensed but Hermione just smiled back at the woman and murmured needing to get something from her bag. She began pulling things out, including a book on animagus magic, her wand, and that jar, all of which she set on McGonagall's desk, before she pulled out a little notepad and a quill and said, "Remind me how to properly spell your name."

Rita Skeeter eyed the jar with what Draco thought was an inexplicably nervous expression and said, "It's right in the article, dear."

Hermione shrugged. "The article contains so many half truths and implied slanderous statements I didn't want to assume it had anything right and I do want to be accurate when I start sending owls out about you." She turned to McGonagall. "Headmistress," she asked in a polite voice, "I'm a little unclear on how slander and libel laws work in the wizarding world. Maybe you could clarify for me whether Ms. Skeeter's article would count as such."

Minerva McGonagall leaned back in her chair and said, her eyes giving nothing away, "The laws are quite similar to those of the Muggle world, Miss Granger. Of course, you would need a solicitor to bring charges."

"Quite beyond the financial reach of a schoolgirl," Rita Skeeter said. "And we do keep several solicitors on staff at the _Prophet_."

"I'd imagine you'd have to," Hermione said. "You'll have a retraction printed in tomorrow's paper or you'll be hearing from a solicitor _not_ in the Prophet's pocket." She smiled. "And it won't just be about slander though I can absolutely guarantee that will be included." She turned that winning smile to the Auror. "I assume you'd be willing to testify that I'm not operating under the influence of a curse."

The woman nodded. She seemed amused by this entire conversation and more than a little interested in the combination of the book and the jar Hermione had set out on the desk.

Hermione smiled at Draco. "It was so kind of Theodore to offer up his solicitor to us," she said. "I assume he has a good one?"

Draco nodded. "Quite," he said. "And because he has legal control of the Nott estates, Theodore can do, well, pretty much anything he'd like."

"So you've decided to abandon your friends and align yourself with Death Eaters?" Rita Skeeter asked, her quill poised over her notebook. "Is that the story of what happened to war heroine Hermione Granger?"

Draco's breath caught as just how angry Hermione looked, but also how satisfied with herself. "I wouldn't recommend taking that road, Rita," she said. "Maybe you'd do better with a series on how students at Hogwarts are working together to overcome the legacy of hatred passed down by their parents." Hermione glanced at McGonagall. "That's what we all want, isn't it Headmistress? To build a peaceful world together? One without the prejudices that tore us apart before?"

Minerva McGonagall, Draco thought, looked as close to beaming as he'd ever seen the woman. "Indeed," was all she said.

"Retraction and apology," Hermione said, "or we'll be contacting Theodore's lawyer. I'm sure he can find any number of laws you're breaking. Slander, Inciting strife." Hermione tapped her finger against her lips and let her eyes wander to the book she'd left out. "Do you think this could be considered an act that supports division, that by its very hostility towards rebuilding our society could be seen as supportive of Voldemort? I think that's been banned, hasn't it?"

"It has," Draco said, impressed.

"What'll it be, Rita?" Hermione asked.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Have you read The Sound of Her Wings by Elantil? I just got directed there on twitter and it's so, so good (and linked out of my favorites.)_**


	33. Chapter 33

"So," Draco said as he, Hermione, and Theo settled back onto their regular spots on the couches in the Slytherin Common Room. Hermione had turned down a drink but Theo was already sipping from his tumbler. "Explain the jar."

Hermione grinned at him. "She's an animagus, as you well know. I recall when you were slipping that horrid woman stories."

Draco flushed. "Still, the jar?" he asked. Hermione just kept smirking at him and his eyes widened and he realized what she meant. "You were threatening to keep her in a jar if she didn't do what you wanted?" he asked, impressed and a little scared.

"No," Hermione said. "I was reminding her that I already had."

Theo set his glass down and stared at the woman. "You kept a reporter in a jar?" he asked.

"Technically she was an insect at the time," Hermione said, looking down at her fingernails. "She's unregistered, you know. The Ministry frowns on that."

"They do," Theo said, drawing out the words. "Explain to me how you got sorted into Gryffindor, exactly?"

"I'm brave," she said, her eyes narrowed and her tone repressive. "Bold, daring, all those things."

"You kept a woman _in a jar_ ," Draco said. He poked her in the side. "You don't plan to keep me in a jar, do you?"

She batted his hand away. "Don't piss me off?" she suggested.

"No wonder we both like you so much," Theo said. "You've got a sneaky side." She started to protest and he waggled a finger at her. "Don't tell me that was Saint Potter's idea. That one's the quintessential Gryffindor. Acts first, charges into battle, not so good with strategy. " Hermione looked like she was getting angry but Theo pressed on, "Noble as hell, granted. The man's a bona fide hero. But you _kept a woman in a jar_."

"I didn't think asking her nicely to stop would work," Hermione muttered. She glanced at Draco. "And I didn't think asking you to stop would help either; she wasn't just getting things from you, you know. She was flitting all over the place eavesdropping."

"Do bugs flit?" Theo asked, picking his glass back up and returning to drinking. Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it, and Theo said, "I don't really care. It was a rhetorical question."

"I wrote Ron today," Hermione said. Draco stiffened at her side. "I had to borrow some paper from Professor McGonagall but I think I made my point clear."

Draco looked perplexed for a moment and then began to laugh. "You sent him a Howler, didn't you?"

"I borrowed your owl, too," Hermione said. "He seems to like me and I wanted one who was clever enough to understand me when I asked to make sure it was delivered in front of his mother."

Draco reached out a hand and ran it down one side of Hermione's hair, marveling at the very idea she'd sent a Howler to Ron Weasley. "So far today," he said, "You've threatened a woman for slandering me - "

"And me," Hermione muttered.

"And sent a Howler to one of your best friends because he -"

"Acted in a way he should have _known_ I'd never tolerate," Hermione cut him off again. "He'll come around. Eventually. Harry already has; he's no fan of yours but he knows I'm not an idiot."

"Still," Draco said, and he tugged her closer to him and, putting his hands on each side of her face, lowered his lips to hers. "You defended me," he whispered around the kisses he was laying along her mouth. "You defended me _to your friends_."

"To my friend who's acting like a shite," Hermione said, pulling away from him so she could speak. "But, of course I did. What did you think I'd do?" He didn't answer and she huffed a little. "Even if he hadn't been so stupid as to accuse me of being under a curse," she said, poking Draco with every word to emphasize her point, "I'd have told him off. He doesn't get to just go after you for the sin of existing. He doesn't have to _like_ you but he has to be civil. We survived a war; it shouldn't be that hard to treat one another with courtesy."

Theo began to laugh. "Don't ever make this one angry," he advised Draco before picking up his glass and standing. "I'm going to go read. You two go for a walk and snog or something. I'm sure you've got bonds to form and lovey dove shite like that to indulge in."

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - A bit of a transitional chapter. I happen to know the next one has ridiculous sweetness in it so I could be bribed to do two in one day._**


	34. Chapter 34

The day had reached that span of time when the very air seems blue when Draco and and Hermione slipped out of the castle. They began to run, laughing, down through the untended grounds out toward the lake. "What a _rotten_ day," Hermione said, gasping, when they collapsed near what had once been a shed for holding garden tools and now was a pile of unrepaired stones with a collapsed wooden roof. "I'm so glad to be just away."

Draco used his wand to whisk away some broken glass from where she'd settled down and began idly stacking the fallen rocks to rebuild the wall. Hermione joined him in the work and they let their magic twine in and around one another's as they cast charm after charm, reconstructing the little building in silent unison. The sky shifted to darker and darker blues and purples until the gloaming wrapped itself around them and they stopped, unable to see well enough to continue. Hermione cast a Patronus just to admire the silvery creature and let it add a cool light to their evening.

"I've never been able to do that," Draco said, watching the little otter frisk about.

"Really?" Hermione asked him with obvious surprise.

He shrugged. "You want to be Imperiused, I'm your guy. You want an impressive sounding but ineffective Cruciatus? I can do that." He waved his hand toward the gamboling otter. "But this?" He shook his head.

"I'm not that great at it," Hermione admitted. "It's easy here because there's nothing pressing misery down onto us, no Dementors, but I have trouble whenever there's an actual need for it."

It was Draco's turn to look surprised. "But you're such a good witch," he said.

She shrugged and said, "It's… it's hard for me to just summon up joy on command. It's not like I had a bad childhood or anything - "

"Me neither," Draco murmured.

" - and Merlin knows Harry's was bloody miserable and he can make one easily." She sighed. "He's just all - " she waved her hands in Draco's face and the man jerked away from her fingers, " - emotions, emotions everywhere." She sighed. "Ron's the same way, as you got treated to recently. I'm more - " she pulled her hands back to her chest.

"You keep it all in," Draco said.

"Private," Hermione agreed. "Cold I've been called."

"I'm the same way," he said. He managed a wan smile. "I bet you'd be great at Occlumency."

"Harry was terrible," Hermione said.

"Well," Draco said, "all those emotions flying everywhere."

Hermione leaned her head up against Draco's shoulder and they watched her otter fade away. "It's pretty," he said. "I like it." He slipped his hand into hers.

Hermione didn't say anything, just closed her eyes. And they sat there as true darkness crept up. "I could teach you," she said at last. "Or I could try."

"Teach me what?" Draco asked.

"How to make a Patronus," she said. "If you wanted to learn. I mean, the theory at least; I know it never really got covered in the regular curriculum and you weren't really a part of -." She stopped speaking.

"I wouldn't have been exactly welcome," Draco said. "I was trying to find you all and betray you, remember?"

"Sometimes I wish we got a do-over," Hermione whispered. "I wish we could just try it again. Do it better."

"Probably wouldn't work," Draco said. "I'd just screw it up a different way."

Hermione took a deep breath and then pulled his wand from his pocket, set it into his hand, and wrapped her own fingers around his. She made the gesture she always used to summon her otter and said, "Think of something that makes you happy, something that's just utter joy for you, and push all that feeling into your wand and say _Expecto Patronum_."

Draco moved his hand, mimicking the gesture she'd done, and, repeated the words. An otter sprang from the tip and rolled around in the grass, looking pleased with itself.

"I think you need to take your hand away," Draco said. "You're just doing your own."

Hermione, however, was staring at the otter, her hand already pulled away and over her mouth. "Do it again," she whispered. "Do it without me."

Draco could feel tension creep up his spine and into his shoulders as he dismissed the otter and cast the charm again. Another otter sprang forward and sat back on its haunches, turning its fluid neck to regard the pair of teens with what looked far too much like amusement.

"But that's yours," Draco said.

Hermione cast her own and a second otter joined the first. "No," she said. "It's yours."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - As promised, sweetness._**

 ** _A lot of people want to see the Howler. Because this is wholly from either Draco or Hermione's point of view if it doesn't happen around them we don't see it, so, sorry. Maybe a tumblr only outtake, like the Lyre Concert for Like Brothers if people really wanted it._**


	35. Chapter 35

Theo was thoroughly pissed by the time Draco got back to their room. As usual only the slightest slur betrayed his intoxication and Draco sighed and took the visible bottle away and put it in his own trunk.

"Spoilsport," Theo said.

Draco ignored that. "Theo," he said. "What do you know about the patronus charm?"

Theo shrugged. "Drives off Dementors. Hard to do. Potter was weirdly gifted at it. I forget what year it's supposed to be taught in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Merlin knows no one taught it to us." He lay back. "I wonder who they'll get to teach Defense this year. Traditionally it's someone incompetent or a Death Eater."

"No Death Eaters left," Draco said.

"There's you," Theo said. "Your dad."

Draco flinched. "I don't think I'll be offered the job," he muttered.

"Can you imagine your dad doing it?" Theo propped himself up on his elbow. "Miss Weasley, please fold your hands in your lap like a lady instead of tossing that Snitch from one hand to the other. You're a member of the Sacred 28 even if you are poor as dirt. Try to act with more decorum."

Draco flopped down on his bed. "Won't be my dad," he said. "Even if he… it won't be him."

"Someone incompetent than," Theo said.

"Probably," Draco agreed. "Some Ministry clown."

"I wonder if this one will have kitten plates," Theo said. "I used to watch them and think about how house cats are sadistic little fuckers, no matter how fluffy they are."

"Suited Umbridge, then," Draco said.

"Why do you care about the patrons charm?" Theo asked. "Your girlfriend showing hers off or something?"

Draco stared up at the ceiling. "Do the shapes mean anything? If you have a dog or a cat or whatever does that mean something? Or is it just random?"

"I have no idea," Theo said. "Why?"

"No reason, Draco said. "I was just curious."

Theo made a rude snorting noise but didn't pursue the matter, for which Draco was grateful. They fell asleep, each lost in his own ruminations.

The morning brought coffee, more marmalade, and an owl from Harry. Knowing the birds couldn't make their way to the internal makeshift dining room, and knowing Harry was sure to write, Hermione had gone to check the mail before she met Draco and Theo for breakfast. Both looked at the parchment in her hands. Draco said nothing, just got up to make her a plate, but Theo just held his hand out and with a sigh Hermione passed it over. Theo skimmed the note, then read it again more carefully. He handed it back and said, "Well, he knows Weasley's being an arse, at least."

Hermione folded the letter up and put it into her bag. "I made it pretty clear I wasn't going to tolerate it," she said. "If the original owl I sent him before the thing with the _Prophet_ didn't make my feelings known I'm sure the Howler I sent did." She took a bite of the toast Draco had gotten her. "Harry plans to come up once school starts to say hello."

"He's not coming back?" Theo asked.

She shook her head. "He and Ron were both accepted into Auror training at the Ministry, even without N.E.W.T.s."

"Not you?" Draco asked.

"I don't want to be an Auror," Hermione said. "I've had enough of Dark wizards." She picked up her toast again and stared at it. "I don't know what I want to do. Rest, maybe. Not really an option, I guess. But no more fighting. Something good."

"At least you'll be able to get a job," Theo said.

"You don't need one," Hermione pointed out. "You can both rest in peace in your mansions."

Theo looked away. "I guess," he said. "Though 'rest in peace' is usually what you say about a dead body."

"I wonder who will come back," Draco said. "I wonder how bad it will be."

"Bad," Hermione said. "No matter who comes back." She shook her head. "I need to write to Hannah Abbott and ask about her group, does she want help, can I do anything."

"Recovery Group," Theo muttered. "Fun. I can hardly wait."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Sorry this is late today. It was a morning that started with a migraine, moved onto having to get a child properly outfitted for ballet, then ballet, then the annual gala for Hartbeat Ensemble which had a fabulous bit from a play they're developing about James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry but in all that busy I didn't have time to post this morning._**

 ** _I did get the Howler outtake onto tumblr, and you can see it on my tumblr at colubrina dot the tumbling place dot com /_** ** _post / 128925798296_** ** _/ the-howler-outtake-from-rebuilding-ginny-eyed_**


	36. Chapter 36

Summer passed as summer does every year and the days grew shorter and the nights cooler and the wildflowers that dotted the grounds of Hogwarts shifted from bindweed and wild roses to studier thistles. On one walk out by the edge of the Forbidden Forest Hermione, Draco, and Theo even found a patch of wild blackberries and braved the insects and spiders to harvest enough to eat them by the handful and throw them into one another's mouths. Draco wrapped an arm around around Hermione and kissed the sweet fruit taste away at length while Theo groaned and lay back on the ground and looked up to the blue, blue sky. "You two are like rabbits in heat, I swear."

"I don't think rabbits kiss." Hermione pulled her mouth off Draco long enough to say, eliciting another exasperated sound from Theo.

"Your girlfriend has to be right _all the time_ ," he said to Draco as though she weren't there. "Doesn't it get tiresome?"

"Not really," Draco said, "You're just a grouchy arsehole because you wish there were someone you could date."

"Anyone," Theo agreed. "I'd even go for a Hufflepuff. But we all know that's not going to happen. I am, after all, disgusting on multiple levels."

Hermione reached over and slapped him.

"Fuck," Theo said, putting his hand on his face and sitting up again. "Bitch. What was that for?"

"Don't call yourself disgusting," Hermione said.

"You don't even have one of these," Draco said, flashing his Dark Mark. "Amateur."

Hermione balled up her fist and went to hit Draco in the arm but he caught her hand and kissed it instead. "We both love your violence," he said, "but could you stop?"

Theo lifted his head and looked at her, his expression serious. "Hermione," he said, "you might as well get used to it. Your friend Ron's reaction - that's going to be what people think. What people _say._ You can't smack everyone who - "

Her eyes flashed.

"You _can't_ ," Theo said. "You can't fight our battles. You just have to accept that we're… it's over. This is over. It's the end of August. The library is done. We've cleaned up books and fixed walls and this has been a little pretend idyll and it's done now because hundreds of people are going to come back very soon, people who hate us."

"With reason," Draco muttered.

"You were - " Hermione began.

Draco put a hand gently over her mouth. "You aren't listening," he said. They'd had this discussion before. "It doesn't matter. We're Slytherin. We're evil. No one who went bad didn't come from Slytherin." Hermione shook her head. "You know it's what people think. It's what _you_ thought and you're so ruthlessly fair that it's terrifying. It's going to be awful and people are going to… they're going to say terrible things to you. To us, yes, but also to you _because_ you're friends with us."

"It's not fair," she muttered against his hand and she could feel the tears start to well up.

Draco frowned and Theo sighed and both muttered, "Gryffindors" under their breath. Hermione huffed out a breath of air, wiped at her face, and moved so she was laying down on the scratchy, browning grass next to Theodore. Draco settled in on her other side and the three of them closed their eyes, Hermione leaning her head up against Draco and reaching her hand over to let her fingers twine through Theo's. After a bit Theo said, "You do realize if we hang out like this where anyone can see us, people will say things. Vile, unpleasant things"

"I'm sure they said things about me and Harry and Ron," Hermione muttered.

Draco laughed. "We did," he admitted. "Though the way Weasley used to use his tongue to fish around in that Lavender Brown girl's throat in public did kind of make it obvious you two weren't a thing."

"Gryffindors," Theo muttered again. "It's like they don't know how to find a broom closet."

"You don't think I'm going to just pretend I don't know you once everyone gets back, do you?" Hermione demanded. "Just to keep people from being nasty?" There was no response so she squeezed Theo's hand as hard as she could.

"Bitch," he muttered, then added, "You'd be smart to."

"I stood up to Bellatrix," Hermione said. "I think I can handle a couple of nasty school kids."

"It'll be more than a couple," Draco warned her.

"Still," she said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Back to the morning update schedule, and with it a bit of a time jump to get us to the start of school._**


	37. Chapter 37 (September 1st)

The morning of September first Draco helped Hermione move her things back to Gryffindor Tower. They'd both ordered the books they'd need for the year via the post and, once she'd locked away her things where he couldn't go they both stood in the hall outside the portrait.

"Well," Draco said. "This is it. First day of school."

Hermione crossed her arms, uncrossed them, and then sighed. "Yeah," she said. "Goodbye peace, hello itty-bitty first years who can't find the toilets and who lose their familiars."

"Whatever happened to that cat of yours," Draco asked her.

"Ran off during the war," Hermione said. "Lost, like so many other things."

Draco nodded and reached out for her hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "Do you want another one?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I have it in me to look after a pet right now," she said. "And I like to think he's on the grounds somewhere and once he knows things have calmed down he'll come back, a little skinny, maybe, and with a scar or two where he defeated some nasty stray, but mostly in one piece."

Draco gave her a long look as that but she didn't seem to mean anything other than the surface words. Pansy would have meant something else. Theo would have meant something else. Hermione, however, seemed to be just talking about her missing cat.

"Do you want to go for a walk before the train arrives?" Draco asked. "One more glorious afternoon of freedom?"

She squeezed his hand. "I'm not going to abandon you," she said.

"Doesn't matter what you plan," Draco said. They began making their way down the stairs and slipped into a passage that had survived the destruction and rebuilding of the castle so they could take a short cut to an herb garden Professor Sprout had started. "This school is designed to separate people. Starting tonight we'll be sitting across a huge hall from one another at every meal, spending free time in separate dorms. We'll meet for classes but only because there are so few people in things like advanced Arithmancy they have to combine the Houses." He shrugged and let got of her hand to push open the door that led outside. "Wouldn't want anyone else to get contaminated by too much contact with the snakes, after all."

Hermione ignored the bitterness in his tone as she passed by him, thanking him with the automatic courtesy she still offered every time he held a door, and settling on a small bench in the walled garden. "I love this spot," she said. "I hope it doesn't get to overrun." She ran her hands along a stem of lavender, pulling the purple flowers off and dropping them into Draco's outstretched hands. "And do you really think I don't plan to sit with you at meals?"

"I don't think I'll be welcome at the Gryffindor table," he said, bringing his hands to his face to smell the herb. "And you might be uncomfortable surrounded by Slytherins."

Hermione tilted her head to the side and smiled. "Do you think that would stop me?" she asked.

"You can't sit with me tonight," he protested. "It's the Sorting Feast."

Hermione shrugged and tipped her face up to soak in the sun. "House Unity is supposed to be a thing," she said. "And I'll sit where I please."

"Rules - " he began and then stopped. "You mean it," he said.

"Did I ever mention how I robbed a bank?" Hermione asked.

Draco began to laugh. "No," he said, "though I am aware anyway. Some of your exploits are pretty common knowledge."

"If I sit with you," she said, "your parents will find out. Are you ready for that?"

Draco let the purple flowers fall through his fingers to the brick pavers and said, "I wrote them weeks ago, after the thing with the _Prophet_ I figured I had to."

"You never said."

He shrugged and looked away. "I was hoping to be able to tell you they didn't care," he admitted. When she didn't say anything he turned back to face her. She had her eyes closed and was trembling. "I think if you can rob a bank, I can survive a little parental disapproval of my dating choice," he said. She let out a breath and he could see her throat bob as she swallowed.

"I know how important they are to you," she said.

He took her hand. "I love them," he said. "But they don't get to pick my girlfriend."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Argghh! I've only got 6 chapters front loaded! Need to write!_**

 ** _Thank you, again, for all your lovely support and kind words here and on tumblr. You don't know how much that means to me or how it keeps me going._**


	38. Chapter 38

Hermione, Draco, and Theodore met outside the Great Hall before the Sorting Feast and looked nervously from one to the other. "It won't be that bad," Hermione muttered as she wiped her palms along her robes. "We survived a war. School is nothing."

"It will be awful," Theodore corrected her. "But what else is there?"

She pushed open the door and they looked at the long tables, one for each House, and Theodore said, "Well, I guess this is it. It's been nice knowing you. I'll see you in class, assuming you're willing to - "

Hermione hit him.

"Bitch," he said.

"She's decided to sit with us," Draco said.

"Fucking Gryffindors," Theodore said, his words almost masking his relief. "Have to do the idiotic brave thing every time."

"Well," Hermione said with a shrug, "I'm not sure who's coming back from my year in Gryffindor but I know Ron and Harry aren't and, really, they were the only friends I had. Lavender died." She stopped and swallowed hard. "So she won't be back. And Parvati never really liked me." She patted Theo on the arm. "I'm really just being selfish and sitting with people who'll talk to me."

"Right," Theodore said. "When I think of Hermione Gran… Hermione I think of selfishness every time." He held his arm out toward the Slytherin table. "After you, you hideously selfish human being."

She made a gesture like you was going to hit him again and he laughed and dodged out of the way. When McGonagall came in and saw the three of them seated together she made a tight smile and inclined her head toward Hermione.

When the students began pushing their way through the doors and finding spots at their tables while they waited for the first years to get rowed over more than one person noticed where Hermione was sitting. More than one person frowned at the sight. Pansy Parkinson was the first to say anything. "Get lost on your way to the Gryffindor table, Granger?" she asked.

"Problem, Parkinson?" Theodore drawled.

Pansy looked at Draco and Theodore and the way they flanked Hermione, shrugged, and sat down across from the three of them. "No," she said. "Who knew the _Prophet_ could get things even partially right? This'll be good."

Neville Longbottom fumbled his way across the room and said, "Hey, Hermione," before standing there, shifting from one foot to another, clearly unsure what to do next.

She stood up, struggling to turn around on the tight bench, and hugged him. "I missed you," she said. "You been okay?"

He shrugged. "Healers say I'm fine," he said. She nodded. "I didn't believe Ron, you know," he said. "I don't care if you…" he trailed off and looked at Draco. "I don't care," he said again, thrusting the words out like weapons in front of him.

"Never got a chance to thank you for that bit with the snake," Draco said to Neville. "Good work."

Neville blinked a few times. "Yeah," he said. "Never liked snakes." As soon as the words came out of his mouth he seemed to realize what he'd said and flushed.

Theodore laughed. "We've been shites to you," he said. "Maybe this year?"

Neville's shoulders tensed. "Yeah," he said. "I just wanted to say hi, Hermione, and that I knew that article… I'll see you in the common room, right?"

"Yeah," she said. "After the Feast."

"Right," Neville said, and walked away. When he sat down at the Gryffindor table he put his head close to Ginny Weasley's and the girl turned to look over at Hermione. She waved, but didn't get up to come over, and Hermione waved back.

"Self-righteous much?" Pansy said, helping herself to a roll and taking a bite. Hermione gave the other woman a dirty look at which Pansy shrugged and smirked. "I'm just telling you what I see, Granger."

"And you people wonder why no one likes you," Hermione muttered as more and more students came in and found their seats.

"No one likes me because I suggested we turn over the savior of the wizarding world to the devil incarnate," Pansy said, looking at her roll as thought it had somehow displeased her. "I'd forgotten how bland and doughy these things are. Pathetic, really." She set it down on her plate. "After that I doubt opting not to fawn all over Neville Longbottom's substantial arse is going to make people think any worse of me."

"He's - "

"Brave and noble and a hero, just like you," Pansy said. "And I'm not. I actually get it, Granger. Now shut up because the first years are coming in."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another day, another chapter._**

 ** _Yes, they will always be this short. Yes, I'm planning on going all the way through 8th Year. Tumblr remains the best way to ask questions 'cause FF on mobile is even worse than tumblr on mobile._**

 ** _And, of course, you know I love your reviews; they are the iced coffee on a glorious early fall morning of my life._**


	39. Chapter 39

None of the Slytherins from their year other than Pansy had returned so the four of them sat alone at the far end of the table and watched the tiny eleven-year-olds scoot into the room. "They look scared," Hermione said.

"Wouldn't you be?" Pansy muttered. "I'm sure they heard what went on here last year."

"I doubt they've heard all of it," Theo said, his eyes dark as he watched the first girl inch forward and sit on the stool. "I'd like to think no one would share some of those stories with children."

"Children lived them," Pansy countered.

Hermione let her eyes wander to the second-years at the base of the Slytherin table. They had a hardness to them she didn't remember having at twelve and the had angled themselves with their backs to on another, pairing off in unconscious defensive stances. She looked over at the Gryffindor table. Same thing. The little Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws too. All the younger students had their wands within reach and were scanning the room for exit paths.

She reached under the table for Draco's hand. He squeezed her fingers reassuringly as the hat sent the first child off to Hufflepuff and Headmistress McGonagall settled it on the next head. Hermione clapped for all the little ones, giving out a loud cheer for the first student sorted into Gryffindor. Pansy gave her a sour look for that but she didn't back down and instead waved at the dark-haired boy as he ran to join the Gryffindor table. He waved back.

A little girl was the first child sorted into Slytherin. She looked like she was going to cry and the Hall seemed to hold its collective breath as she pulled herself off the stool and looked at McGonagall with misery in her pale eyes. Hermione kicked Theo under the table and he let out a yelp and glared at her then, realizing what she wanted, started cheering for the girl. The rest of the Slytherin table joined in and, slowly, so did the rest of the hall, clapping for her the way it had for all the other first years. The girl tip-toed to the Slytherin table where the second-years she was seated next to leaned over to her and began whispering things in her ears. Hermione watched the girl as she sagged with relief that - what? - her Housemates weren't monsters? That they were just children like she was?

Only four children were Sorted into Slytherin and Hermione couldn't miss that the incoming class seemed smaller than usual. "People kept their children home," Theodore said in response to her unspoken question. "They're afraid."

"More than I thought we'd get," Pansy said. "And all girls." She poured herself some pumpkin juice, discretely spiking it with a flask Theo passed her. "I'll have to do the thing for all of them, I guess."

"The thing?" Hermione asked her.

Pansy shrugged. "The oldest class adopts the babies, shows them around, let's them know what teachers they can trust, which ones have it in for Slytherins." She took a drink and McGonagall began the welcoming speech and thanked the various people who'd helped rebuild the school to get it ready for the start of classes. "Blah, blah, blah," Pansy said, eyeing the woman. She looked back at Hermione. "Don't you do something like that in Gryffindor? How the hell are a bunch of eleven-year-olds supposed to figure this place out without a mentor?"

"We don't," Hermione said. "Or didn't. It's a good idea, though."

"You probably don't have the same 'everyone hates you' issues," Pansy said. "Gotta love the Carrows, making that _so_ much better."

"Bastards," Draco muttered.

The sixth and seventh years close enough to hear them nodded in agreement. "I hope they're both rotting in Azkaban," one boy said, enough venom in his tone to wipe out everyone in the room. "I hope they're getting special attention."

"Why the fuck is the Weasley bitch at the Head Table?" Pansy asked.

Hermione turned away from the muttered conversation about the Carrows and looked up at the High Table where Molly Weasley was, indeed, making her way to an empty seat with a smile on her face. Molly looked over at Hermione, sitting at the Slytherin table, and then looked away, cold disapproval obvious in her stance.

"I'd like everyone to welcome Professor Molly Weasley, who has agreed to take over the position of Defense Against the Darks Arts teacher this year," Minerva McGonagall said. The Gryffindor table erupted into raucous cheers as Hermione began to feel woozy and put one hand on the table to steady herself. Her heart started to race, she could feel sweat prickle at her armpits, and she put the other hand over her mouth lest she throw up onto her plate.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked. She noted his obvious concern with detachment while she looked up at the woman she'd assumed would be her mother-in-law some day as she thanked Headmistress McGonagall.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Aw, I love you all. So many nice things you say._**


	40. Chapter 40

"What's the matter?" Draco asked again but Hermione just shivered as she sat, not even sure how or what to answer. This just happened, and had since the war.

It was Pansy who said, "Panic attack," the sound of personal knowledge in her voice. "Granger."

"Hermione," Theodore said. Pansy gave him an annoyed look and he said, "She doesn't like being called by her last name. Don't ask."

Pansy nodded at that with a short, sharp jerk of her head and leaned in closer. "Hermione," she said, "it'll be fine. Just take slow breaths and hold on." She reached down blind and fumbled in her bag, finally pulling out a cloth pouch. She opened it and pulled out one of what was clearly one of many small, stoppered vials. "Drink this. It'll help."

Draco took the vial from Pansy, pulled the cork out, and handed it to Hermione. She stared at the turquoise blue liquid for long moment and Pansy snapped, "I'm not trying to poison you; it's a small dose of Draught of Peace. I'm a bitch, not an idiot." Hermione smiled a little apologetically and tipped the vial into her mouth. Within moments her breathing had returned to normal and she muttered an embarrassed 'thanks' at Pansy as she handed the empty vial back.

"I thought those people liked you," Pansy said as she dropped the vial back into her pouch and tucked that away into her bag. "Or did your well-publicized fallout with the Weasel mean the bitchy mother hates you too?"

"I… I'd rather just… " Hermione shook her head. "I don't… let's eat."

Pansy began piling food onto her plate. "If you ask Madam Pomfrey she can give you some," she said. "Or you can roll your own, so to speak. I assume you're good enough at Potions to do that. I'm not, so I make do with being judged."

Theodore and Draco exchanged looks as Hermione began to look less like she was falling apart and more like she was getting angry. "Judged?" she asked, "because we… after a _war_? We fought a _war_. As _children_."

"Judged," Pansy confirmed. She seemed amused by Hermione's shock.

"I was… I had bad experiences," Hermione said, the low fury beginning to simmer as she rubbed at her sleeve where it covered her 'mudblood' scar.

"We all did." Pansy didn't look up from her plate.

"How can people… most people just hid in their houses," Hermione looked from Theodore to Draco as if one of them could give her an explanation. "If you weren't here, weren't on the run or fighting… it was bad for everyone, I know, but it wasn't… how can people who didn't - "

"They just do," Pansy said. She looked up and met Theodore's eyes. "Are they all like this?" she asked.

"No idea," Theodore said. "She's the only one I've ever really talked to. It's been an ongoing education."

"Probably," Draco muttered.

"I can make it," Hermione said. "The potion. It's not hard and if you make a mistake it's obvious. If you trust me to, I'll bottle some for you."

Pansy took a drink of her juice. "That would be nice of you." There was no inflection in her voice at all.

The rest of the Feast passed and they stood to go back to their common rooms. "See you at breakfast," Draco asked, lacing his fingers through Hermione's.

"Walk me up?" she asked.

Draco glanced at Theodore. "I'll help Pansy and the prefects get the first years settled," Theo said. "Walk your girlfriend up to her Tower. Might as well get it over with."

All three of them looked over at the Gryffindor table where Neville and Ginny were the only people over fourteen not staring at Hermione and Draco with disapproval. "Yeah," Draco muttered.

"If you don't want to," Hermione began.

"You sat with the snakes," he said. "I think I can walk to the lions."

Hermione looked back at the Slytherin table where the students were carefully ignoring the pair. "Snakes weren't so bad," she said.

"We don't really do open conflict," Theodore said. He took her hand and made a show of kissing it. "We like the back stab so much better. Don't think it's over because no one said anything unpleasant over dinner."

"Great," Hermione muttered. "Something to look forward to."

"So many things to look forward to," Draco said, holding out his arm as if he were going to escort her into a ballroom. "Your friends, my Housemates, Recovery Group - "

"What the fuck is Recovery Group?" Pansy demanded. Theodore gave her a 'what do you think?' look and she said, "Oh, hell no. _Hell_ no _._ "

"Let's go," Hermione said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Next up, the hallway and then the Common Room reactions to the relationship…_**


	41. Chapter 41

Whispers followed Draco and Hermione as they walked through the hall and began climbing the stairs. "Changing sides, Granger?" one boy Draco didn't recognize sporting the Gryffindor red and gold tie asked as he tried to brush past them.

Hermione stepped in his way and her hand twitched as though she were going to reach for her want. Draco tensed but all she did was say, "I'm sorry. I didn't quite hear that. Did you have something to say about my loyalty?"

He looked down at his feet and mumbled something that might have been "Death Eater."

"Give it up, idiot." Draco looked back in surprise as the youngest Weasley, her long red hair tied up in a sloppy plait, came up behind them. "She curses people who piss her off." Ginny pulled out her wand. "And so do I. And you're about to make the list."

"He's a _Death Eater,"_ the boy said, enunciating this time so no one could mishear him.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Oh Merlin," she said. "I see why you weren't Sorted into Ravenclaw. He was a kid who got fucked by Voldemort, just like the rest of us. That bastard just got a little more up close and personal with Malfoy here. Count yourself lucky it wasn't _your_ house the noseless bastard moved into and stop blocking the stairs."

"I wouldn't have - " the boy began.

"Yes, you would have," Ginny said to Draco's astonishment. "Now move."

The boy nearly sprinted away and Hermione let out a low laugh. "You scared him," she said.

"Deserved it, the little arsehole," Ginny said. "I'm sorry about my brother, by the way."

The three of them returned to climbing the stairs and Draco had some unkind thoughts about the idea of making a dormitory this inconvenient. "Yeah," Hermione said as she turned a corner to start up another set of the moving stairs, "he's not in my good graces after his little stunt." She paused for a moment and asked Ginny, "Is he sorry yet?"

"Mostly sorry you sent that Howler," Ginny said. "Harry let him have it, you know. Told him he had to accept it was over and stop acting like such a jerk and that involving that Skeeter cow was nearly a hanging offense."

"Took him a long time to get over it when he thought my cat was going after his rat for no reason," Hermione said. "And Harry's right about that bitch."

Ginny let out a disgusted noise at Hermione's mention of the rat and Draco decided to risk asking what about the creature was important. The rest of the way up the stairs the two women alternated telling him the story of the Weasley family rat and how Hermione's cat had hated it and how it had turned out to be an animagus and a Death Eater. "He betrayed Harry's parents," Hermione said. "And then lived in a dormitory with Harry for years."

"Coward," Ginny said. Draco flinched at how the woman made it clear that was the worst possible thing she could say about a person. She reached out a hand and touched his shoulder. "Not you," she said. "I meant what I said to that idiot. You were in a bad place and you did the best you could."

"I wish I could believe that," Draco said. They'd finally reached the end of the stairs and turned down the corridor and headed toward the portrait of the ridiculous fat lady in her ridiculous toga. Trust Gryffindors, he thought, to have a woman going to a drinking party as their entrance guard.

Ginny shrugged. "You still fly?" she asked.

Draco felt his lips turn up in a smile at that. "I don't think I'll be going out for Seeker this year," he said, "But I haven't quite forgotten how to ride a broom, no."

"Good," she said. "We have a better chance to beat Slytherin if you aren't flying for them." Draco blinked at her a few times and she laughed. "You _are_ good, you know. Or you were. Not as good as I am, but good enough."

"Not as good as you?" Draco said, affronted. "Sure of that?"

"Merlin," Hermione muttered. "I'd forgotten you were as obsessed with Quidditch as Ron and Harry. Why are all my friends jocks?"

"Theo's not," Draco said.

"Meet me at the pitch tomorrow," Ginny said. "I've got some spare practice Snitches. Want to see who gets it first?"

"You're on," Draco said right as they reached the entrance to the dorm.

"I'll let you two say goodnight," Ginny said with a grin in her voice as she went inside. "You, Malfoy, I'll see tomorrow after dinner."

"Jock," Hermione said as she looked up at Draco.

He bent down to kiss her, lingering at the side of her lips until she parted them and turned her head to capture his mouth with her own. "I'm your jock, though," he said when they parted.

She reached a hand up and brushed his pale hair out of his eyes. "Indeed," she said. "I'll see you at breakfast?"

"Eat with me again?" he asked.

She nodded and reached up to kiss him one last time before slipping away into her Common Room and what was sure to be an interesting evening.


	42. Chapter 42

Draco braced himself before he pushed his way back into his own common room. The quiet space he'd spent so many nights with Hermione and Theo was filled with students. It was loud, so very loud, as everyone spoke freely as they hadn't been willing to on the train and in the Dining Hall. Pansy had the four little first years tucking into miniature cakes she'd somehow acquired and he pushed his way through other students to join her.

"Get your goodnight kisses in?" Pansy asked. He rolled his eyes and she snickered. "This, my little ducklings, is Draco Malfoy. He's a right prat, but you can trust him."

The girls all looked at him with wide eyes and one said, around a mouth filled with cake, "Are you really dating _Hermione Granger?"_ She said the woman's name as if she were a celebrity and Draco sighed before he pulled a chair up to their table and leaned his elbows on the dark wood. As he reached forward to grab one of the cakes Pansy slapped his hand.

"Are you going to marry her?" another of the girls asked. He thought she might be the one who had nearly burst into tears at being Sorted into Slytherin; she still seemed a little shaky and that he was connected to Hermione seemed to give him credibility in her eyes. Anyone Hermione Granger would date couldn't, in her world, be all bad.

"Yes," he said glaring at Pansy and snatching a cake. "And I don't know," he said to the second girl. "Do you think I should?"

She turned red and glared at one of the other girls and it didn't take a genius to know she'd gotten kicked under the table.

"Weren't you a Death Eater?" the smallest of the girls asked. She had a great mane of dark hair and wide dark eyes and, when he nodded at her question, she looked afraid.

"Do you want to see the Mark?" he asked. The girls glanced at one another until finally the one who'd been interested in his marital plans mumbled yes and he rolled his sleeve up. They all leaned forward to look at it and one reached out her finger, glancing at him for permission, and touched it.

"Did it hurt?" she asked, her finger resting on the dull snake.

"Very much," he admitted. He realized the room had fallen nearly silent and they'd attracted a crowd of older students who were trying to pretend they weren't listening, weren't trying to get a glimpse the faded stain on his arm. "But they told me if I did it, did what I was told, my parents would live."

"Did you kill anyone?" the smallest girl asked.

He shook his head and she looked relieved. "But I hurt people," he said. "I wish I hadn't, but I did."

"We all did."' Theo had come up behind him and said the words flatly as if daring anyone to argue. "Most of us didn't want to; some did, and they're gone now."

"But Hermione Granger is willing to go out with you anyway?" the girl asked.

"She is," Draco said. He raised his voice. "And despite what you may have read in the _Prophet_ , I didn't _Imperius_ her."

"Told you parents yet?" That question came from the back of the room and it was laced with the sort of vicious mockery he'd anticipated, This he knew how to deal with. This was easier than little girls who wavered between hoping they'd found a protector and wondering if he was what they needed protecting from.

"My mother thinks it's romantic," he said as if he were confiding a secret to the girls, a secret he was, for some reason, making sure could be heard throughout the room. One of the girls giggled; she was clearly in sympathy with what he claimed his mother felt.

Of course, what Narcissa Malfoy had actually said was that he shouldn't let romantic impulses cloud his common sense. No need to add that bit, however.

"How about your father?"

Draco shrugged. "I don't plan on letting my father pick my wife, much less my girlfriend," he said. "It isn't 1870 anymore."

"I always thought you and Nott would end up together, little poofs in love." He wasn't sure who'd said that but he made a mental note to find out and make sure they paid for that slur. Theo would never defend himself; he just shrugged and swallowed his feelings, claiming it wasn't worth getting upset over what idiots thought.

"I'm too pretty for Nott," Draco said.

"Too delusional, maybe," Pansy said. "I need to get these girls into their room so if we're all done playing show and tell with Draco's Mark, it's bedtime."

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another morning, another chapter in Rebuilding. Thank you for all your enthusiastic responses to yesterday's offerings, including the bonus chapter. Your reviews are the caffeine of my - and most fanfic writers - hearts._**

 ** _As always (but especially now because I will be wholly on mobile for the weekend) tumblr is the best way to ask a question. My phone seems to recoil from the FF servers with a grimace of poorly concealed disgust on its face and refuses to speak to them._**


	43. Chapter 43

The Gryffindor common room went utterly silent as Hermione walked into it. Neville looked up at her from under his lashes and Ginny seemed to be waiting. After three very long seconds the explosion happened.

"How could you!"

"He's a _Death Eater!_ "

"He killed Dumbledore!"

She tried to interrupt but there was no stopping the flow of accusations once they started. Draco Malfoy was evil, probably as bad as he-who-can-not-be-named ("Voldemort?" Hermione asked with as much emphasis as she could and the student flushed but didn't risk saying the name.) He should be in Azkaban. He should be locked up. He shouldn't be _here,_ breathing their air.

"He tortured kids," someone finally yelled at her and at that there was a pause as everyone did stop to see what she'd say.

"He didn't."

It was a little second year who said that, a boy with a shock of red hair and freckles across his nose and a scar on one cheek that hadn't turned white yet. Hermione realized he had to have gotten it the year before, had to have been cut on his face at school when he was eleven years old.

"He didn't," the boy said again, louder. "He said the words, and he pointed his wand, but he didn't actually - " He seemed to realize everyone was staring at him and he swallowed hard and looked down.

Neville crouched down in front of the boy and said, "Malfoy didn't really hurt you?" he asked, his voice gentle.

"Not anyone," the boy whispered. "Not him, not his skinny friend, none of the girls. Just those two fat boys."

"He's right." A girl who was pressed against an older student said. "Sometimes when they did the torture curse it would feel like you'd been kicked or something - "

"Like that's okay," one of Draco Malfoy's more outspoken critics snapped.

"Let her talk," Ginny said.

" - but it wasn't like when C-C-Crabbe and G - "

She broke off and started to cry and pressed her face against the student she was leaning on.

"The fat boys," the little redhead said. "They _liked_ it. You could tell. It was like - "

"Fire," Hermione whispered. "Like your insides are burning. Like all your bones have shattered. Like you're being pressed into a ball from every side."

The boy nodded, a tear starting to leak out of one eye. He pushed at his with the back of his hand and swallowed.

"And that's what you're kissing," someone sneered. "That's your boyfriend, Granger. The guy who did that to kids."

"He _didn't_ ," the little boy nearly screamed. "The other two did." He flung himself at Neville and began to cry in earnest. "The other two," he whispered.

"Has anyone in this room been tortured by Draco Malfoy?" Ginny asked. In the silence that followed her question she added, "Anyone fake a _Cruciatus_ or two last year? Maybe not fake it quite as well as they'd hoped?"

There was uneasy shuffling as people looked down at their feet and didn't say anything.

"Then leave Hermione alone," Ginny said. "If we're going to only talk to people who were heroic last year, people who never fucked it up, you're stuck with Harry and Neville and no one else." She snorted. "And Harry cheats at cards, just so you know." She looked around. "I loosed a fucking basilisk on this school my first year and you all seem okay with me."

"You didn't - " someone started to say.

"What?" she said, cutting them off. "I didn't mean to? I didn't want to? I knew something was wrong but I didn't ask for help. Just like Malfoy. Just like all of us."

Hermione looked around. "Are we done?" she asked. "Has everyone weighed in on my personal life who intends to?" When no one said anything she turned to the uncomfortable and silent prefect standing closest to her. "Did anyone else from my year come back?"

"Just Neville," the girl said, almost stammering.

"Fine," Hermione said. "Then I get my own room. Good. I'll be in that room. Good night."

She walked alone across the Common Room and went alone into her room where she sat, alone, on the bed and tried not to cry.

When she got up in the morning to to go breakfast she found a sign affixed to her door. It read 'Death Eater's Whore.'


	44. Chapter 44

Hermione nodded to Neville and Ginny at breakfast but walked past the Gryffindor table without greeting anyone else, through she smiled at the little red-headed second year who waved to her, and she sat with Draco and Theo. Pansy slid in next to her. "Don't your heroic friends miss you?" she asked as she grabbed a slice of toast. "I mean, dinner, now breakfast. It's as if you don't like them or something."

"I'm sure Harry misses me very much," Hermione said. "Draco, pass the marmalade." He looked up at her as he spooned the orange sweet onto his plate but because he was directly across from her didn't both to actually slide the pot any nearer.

Pansy snickered as she looked over their shoulders at the Gryffindor table, half of which was staring at Hermione and half of which was very pointedly _not_ staring at her. "I guess your little 'no, the _Prophet_ wasn't totally wrong' revelation went over well," she said.

"If by 'well' you mean 'getting yelled at', then, yes, it went over very well indeed," Hermione said. "Draco, the fucking marmalade if you don't mind."

"Whoa." Theo looked at her and then at the Gryffindor table. "That good, huh?"

"Let's just say Ron's use of 'slag' appears to have been restrained," Hermione said. Theo stiffened in his seat, his shoulders going back and his jaw tightening.

Draco looked defeated and sad. "I told you," he said, rubbing at his arm where the Mark was. "They're just going to… maybe we should - "

"Oh, shut the fuck up and pass the woman the marmalade," Pansy said. "Stop trying to tell her to leave." She leaned to Hermione and said in a conspiratorial whisper clearly meant to be heard. "Get used to this. All sixth year it was 'I'm fine' and 'You need to leave me alone.' Did the idiot ever say, 'Hey, I'm in deep shite and could use some help'? No."

Draco bristled a little at that. "I got help from - "

"The wrong people," Theo said.

Draco shut his mouth at that and passed Hermione the marmalade.

"She's _here_ ," Pansy said to him, "being a bitch about the breakfast foods. Merlin. Would you relax?"

"What do we have first," Theo asked, pulling a schedule out of his bag and trying to change the subject.

"I'm taking Defense, Monsters, and Herbology," Pansy said. "I thought about Muggle Studies but now that Draco's got a pet I'll just ask her what I should know if I lose my mind and decide to go into Muggle London."

Draco glanced at Hermione, clearly worried she'd take offense, but she just took a bite of her toast and mumbled, "That class is stupid anyway, and half the stuff in it is wrong. I'll take you shopping sometime and you'll figure out enough to be functional in an hour or so."

Theo let out a low whistle. "I think hell might have frozen over," he said.

"Inter-House unity," Hermione said and Theo snorted; Pansy just looked intrigued at the prospect of shopping.

"We have Arithmancy first thing, Theo said. "Runes after lunch. Defense is tomorrow. Potions Friday."

"No one else is taking Monsters?" Pansy looked disappointed. "And it'll just be me and that stupid Longbottom in Herbology again."

"Monsters?" Hermione asked, confused.

"Care of Magical Creatures," Draco explained. "You know, it's always monsters." Hermione thought about some of Hagrid's less fortunate lesson plans and had to admit the moniker was apt, not that she intended to admit that.

"I plan to breed Kneazles," Pansy said. "Millie and I have a business plan so I need a N.E.W.T. in that, especially since she opted not to come back."

Hermione almost choked on her toast. "You and Bulstrode are going to breed Kneazles?" she asked in disbelief.

"I like Kneazles," Pansy said. "And all cats love Millie - "

"It's true," Theo said. "They do. You go into someone's house and they get all apologetic about how their cat hates everyone and within moments it's climbing all over Millie. At parties? She's the one in the corner talking to the pets." Draco made an inarticulate sound in agreement.

Hermione rubbed her face with her hand and muttered, "Remind me next time you get me really drunk to tell you about me and Bulstrode's cat."

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Your words are the delight of my days!**_


	45. Chapter 45 (The first Arithmancy class)

Arithmancy started well. Draco had been correct that it would be a small class; just the three of them and two Ravenclaw boys and Hermione pulled out a notepad and leaned forward, excited and relieved to be in a space that was about pure numbers, not blood status or war wounds or lingering hatreds.

She'd known Draco was clever, of course. It wasn't possible to interact with him for years and not realize that. And they'd both always been at the tops of their classes, fighting for the highest ranking without ever admitting it to one another. Still, before now she'd mostly seen him posturing in class, more concerned with showing up Harry or making sure everyone knew his social status than in doing the work. She was surprised how much pleasure she took watching him copy notes down, watching his grey eyes widen in delight when he understood a concept. Theo caught her staring at Draco and smirked at her and, feeling her face burn, she looked back down at the problems on her own paper.

At the end of the class Hermione took the sheet Professor Vector handed her with real pleasure. Critical points of functions. Partial derivatives. Multiple variables. This was going to be so much fun. She stood up and smiled at the Ravenclaw boys, neither of whom she knew well, and said, "We were planning on setting up a study group for this class. What would be a good time for you both to meet?"

"I'd be happy to study with you," one boy began.

The other cut him off. "I'm not meeting up with Death Eaters," he said. "You can try to pass the class without our help."

The boys took their things and left and Hermione stood there, paper with the homework problems still in hand, her mouth agape, as the professor pretended not to have seen the altercation. "I told you," Theo said in an undertone.

"Try to pass," Hermione sputtered. "Like I need _their_ help? Insufferable, conceited, arrogant -"

"Let's go," Draco said as he hefted his own bag to his shoulder. "I'm hungry."

"Need their help,"Hermione was still fuming. "They would be _lucky_ to get our help. Stuck up, self-righteous - "

" _Hungry,"_ Draco said again with more emphasis. "I assume you don't want me to start gnawing on your arm, so let's go get lunch."

"Right," she said.

"If you have any questions, my office hours are on the handout," the professor said. "I'll see you all next week." She left the room and, in her absence, Theo added his own opinion of their fellow students.

"Fuckers," he said.

"I doubt it," Hermione said. At Theo's look she said, "Do you really think either of those two boys is getting any?"

Theo began to snicker and flung an arm around her shoulder. "Have I mentioned today that you are pretty fabulous, Miss Granger," he asked.

"Give her to me," Draco said, pushing Theo's arm way and grabbing Hermione's hand. "Last time I checked, she was my girlfriend. I get to walk her to lunch."

Hermione rolled her eyes and they three of them headed out the door. "You know," she said, "we have to show up those worthless, Ravenclaws shites now."

"Like that will be hard," Draco said. He smirked down at her. "I give the little pricks three weeks before they come to you begging for help."

"Pity my schedule is full," Hermione said. She stopped in the corridor as a group of younger students hurried past them, whispering behind their hands when they saw Hermione and Draco. She leaned more obviously against him and turned her face up to him for a kiss.

"Really?" he asked, but he sounded pleased, and when she raised her brows he smiled and brushed his lips across hers. "You are pretty incredible, Hermione," he whispered before he stepped back. "You really don't like to be crossed, however, do you?"

"If I'm going to have a pair of," she paused and seemed to have to search for the right word.

Theo supplied it. "Arseholes," he said.

"Right," Hermione agreed. "If I'm going to be snubbed for talking to you, well, in for a penny, in for a pound."

"What?" Draco asked.

"Muggle saying," she said. "In for a knut, in for a galleon. Means if I'm going to get condemned, I might as well be all in."

"So you're going to shag right here in the hall?" Theo eyed her. "Really?"

. . . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Another day, another short chapter. Your words are happiness in my day.**


	46. Chapter 46

Draco expected Ginny Weasley to stand him up; surely after a day around their fellow students she would have realized what an outcast he was. It didn't matter, he told himself. When she's not there, as she won't be, just go back to your room and join Theo for a drink.

She was waiting for him, however. He must have looked surprised because she tossed him the box with the Snitch in it and said, "Thought I wouldn't show?"

"I won't exactly be good for your social standing," he said, getting ready to open the box.

"You think I can about shite like that?" the girl asked him. Instead of answering he released the tiny golden ball and it seemed to stretch as it pulled itself out of its box, hovered between them for a moment, then took off into the gloaming with a whir.

"Count to five," Ginny said. At four and half she was on her broom and five had barely left Draco's mouth before she was gone, up into the air with a speed that made him laugh with utter delight. He gave a her a few seconds to fly as he searched the pitch with his eyes, then joined her, whooping into the air once he was above the ground, letting his head fall back as he felt the joy only flying brought.

Merlin, he'd missed this.

His worries about Theo, the nagging image of the knife in his drawer, the sound of the Ravenclaw pricks refusing to study with him, all fell away in the rush of the cooling air, all stopped mattering as he plunged down to the earth and pulled up again, defying injury, defying mortality even, in the quest to grab a tiny ball before his opponent.

"No one cares how well you fly, Malfoy," Ginny Weasley yelled as she pulled alongside him. "The idea is to get the Snitch." They both flew too fast to be safe, and the wind had her hair pushed away, streaming out behind her, and in that dim evening light Draco thought for the first time that she was beautiful.

Then he saw the Snitch and, with a hoot, dove straight toward it. She grinned and followed him and he was sure – sure – he'd get there first until she flew so close to him he had to move over for fear of being knocked off his broom. That shift slowed him down just enough for her to pull ahead and close her fingers around the ball with a triumphant shout.

Back on the ground he shook her hand. "Care for a rematch?" he asked

"Another time," she said.

He nodded and, staring over her shoulder, muttered, "Thanks for what you said last night."

Ginny shrugged. "I had a little experience with that bastard. Shite wasn't your fault."

Draco had to think for a moment to realize what she meant and then remembered the diary – Lord-fucking-Voldemort's diary – that his own father had slipped into her things. "Sorry about that," he said, too little loo late, assuming he could even apologize for something he didn't do. "My dad – "

"Not your fault," Ginny said.

Draco peered at her face. "You okay after that?" he asked.

Ginny turned to walk back to the castle. "You okay after having him in your house?"

"No."

"He was in my head."

Draco shuddered at even the idea. There was a reason he was so good at occlumency. "Right," he said. "Not okay, then."

They met Hermione and Theo at the doorway. "You two done already?" Theo asked. "She must have really smoked you."

The light that spilled out of the castle lit the grin that danced over Ginny's face. "You could say that," she said. "Idiot wants a rematch, though."

"Best two out of three," Draco said.

"He's a fool for me," Ginny said. "Anything to spend time with me, even getting humiliated on the pitch."

"Hey," Draco protested, reaching for Hermione who dropped Theo's hand and took his instead. "She plays very close to dirty and I didn't want to go knocking the Chosen One's girlfriend off her broom. People hate me enough as it is."

Ginny looked a little sad as she said, "I'd rather be just Ginny, especially on the pitch, just me, not Harry's girlfriend."

"Next time knock her off," Theo suggested, taking a swig from a flask.

"Next time," Draco said, "just Ginny."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another day, another short chapter. As always, I adore your reviews and the best way to get a timely answer to a specific question is on tumblr._**


	47. Chapter 47 (The first DADA class)

Hermione sat in the back of the classroom for the first time in her life. She wasn't sure what to expect from this class. Defense Against the Dark Arts. She could have gone right into Auror training, had been offered a spot, and had turned it down to return to school. She'd hunted horcruxes, endured torture, fought the Darkest wizards and witches of their age. She had a feeling the standard year seven curriculum would seem tame next to the life she'd lived but she didn't want to fail her N.E.W.T. just because she didn't know some simple thing on an exam.

Draco slipped into the seat next to her and laced his fingers through her. She squeezed them. "At least it won't be a Death Eater this year," he murmured, tricking her into a laugh.

"I know what to do with those," she said. "This'll be harder."

"And what do you do with Death Eaters?" a Ravenclaw asked her snidely as she passed by. "Suck their cocks?"

"That would be you," Ginny said as she sat herself down in front of Hermione. "Try not to project your own issues."

Neville came into the room. "I'm not sure I should take this," he muttered as he pulled his book out. "I've never been good at Defense."

Theo snorted. "Are you kidding me?" he asked as he sat down behind Neville. "You stood up to that bastard. You _led_ an insurgency. You're the poster child for Defense."

"That's Harry," Neville objected.

Theo kicked his feet out in front of him. "Wrong," he said. "Still insecure, Longbottom? Really?"

Padma Patil drifted in and smiled, possibly at them, possibly at the wall behind them, and sat near a window that she proceeded to stare through for the duration of class. The huge jumper she'd bundled herself into made her look like a blue and grey ball of yarn with a dark head sticking out the top; the chill of the stone classroom had no chance of touching her.

Susan Bones walked in. She gave Draco a guarded look and though she sat in the back with the other eighth years and Ginny she sat as far from Hermione and Draco as she could, next to Neville. Hannah Abbott joined her and she and Neville exchanged smiles. Hannah twisted in her seat so she could face Hermione and said, "Thanks for offering to help with the group. I got your owl right before I had to get ready to come back so I couldn't answer but I could use the help. McGonagall said we could take over classroom 5B. I thought maybe try to get some old couches and make it a comfortable place to hang out so it feels more like a place to go and relax and less like a meeting."

"Like a common room," Hermione said. She drew the words out as if she were thinking about that and Hannah had begun to frown when Hermione said, "That's brilliant. You're so… I would have just put chairs in a circle and asked people to talk about stuff."

Hannah shook her head. "No one's going to do that. Just… a place to be that is safe."

"For everyone," Hermione said. "A place to not have to talk if you don't want to."

"But where you can," Hannah said. "And no one gets to…" she trailed off and looked at Theo as if she wasn't sure what to say.

"We can not go if that would make it easier," Theo said.

"No!" The word exploded out of Hannah. "Everyone has to feel welcome. It's just…"

"People will have things to say," Theo said.

"People hate me," Draco said.

"You let Death Eaters into Hogwarts," Neville said. He sounded apologetic and he swallowed hard as he said it but he met Draco's eyes and didn't look away.

"I did," Draco admitted, his head dropping so his hair hung in his eyes.

Hannah took a deep breath. "You must have been really scared to have done that," she said.

Draco's head jerked up and he looked at the blonde girl with shock. "I was," he said, his voice so quiet it could barely be heard.

"Maybe people need to hear that," Hannah said.

Draco looked down again and shook his head.

"He'll be there," Hermione said. She looked at Theo. "They'll both be there."

Hannah nodded. "If you can get some Slytherins, I can get the Hufflepuffs and Neville and Ginny can get… well, we'll start small and let people join as they feel comfortable."

"You're good at this," Hermione said. She sounded subdued. "I wouldn't be."

Hannah shrugged. "We're all good at different things," she offered. "And I do really need your help."

Hermione nodded and then they all looked up as Molly Weasley walked into the room. She wore a yellow floral skirt, a pair of sensible heels, and a handmade sweater with lumpy flowers warding off the chill of the room. She crossed to her desk and surveyed the room. "This is seventh year Defense Against the Dark Art," she said. "This class is meant to prepare you for your N.E.W.T. exams. I realize many of you - most of you - have already fought against the Dark arts." Her eyes rested for a moment on Draco Malfoy, slouched in his seat. "Not all of you, of course." He slumped down lower. "Nevertheless, the exams are not in line with the practical experiences many of you have had, so I want to ensure the basics have been covered so you can do your best on the Ministry test. Please bear with me if the curriculum seems simple and impractical as we start. I want to go back and review all the material you should have had over the past six years to make sure there are no gaps, then we'll move into formal dueling, more work with voiceless spells, some wandless magic, warding magic, and conjuring a patronus. Are there any questions?"

Draco looked over at Hermione who had fished another tiny vial of blue potion out of her bag and was downing it.


	48. Chapter 48

Draco nudged Hermione out of class and into the corridor before she could get any clever ideas of approaching Professor Weasley. "I stayed in her house," Hermione said, "Now she won't even look at me. She's always been… you know she believed the _Prophet_ way back when when it said I was dating Harry and she got really… she just snubbed me and I was all of fourteen but she thought I'd somehow betrayed her family. And… and… I know it's stupid but I've been on edge for so long and I just keep expecting her to lash out because that's what she does. I think if she actually did it it would be better; bracing myself against it is worse, somehow. It's as bad as the way I expect Snatchers behind every door and - "

"She's a bitch," Theodore said, interrupting Hermione before she could spiral into another anxiety-driven meltdown. "Taking her shite out on kids. Just like the rest of them. All of them, fucking arseholes."

Draco nodded and just kept herding her down the hall and away. Theo followed, Ginny at his heels. "She hates me," Draco said. "I could tell." Ginny made an apologetic noise but didn't contradict him and he nodded, the gesture grim and resigned.

"If you say you deserve it, I will hit you," Hermione said, trying to get a hold on her emotions.

"I - "

"You _don't_ ," she hissed. "The Carrows do. The Lestranges do. But you were a _kid_. You were a _victim_."

"Without getting into the debates about who deserves to be hated," Theo drawled, "the practical thing is she does. She hates all three of us. Draco and I for being what we are, you for breaking things off with her baby and then opting to date a Death Eater instead."

"She's not my mother," Hermione muttered. "She doesn't get to decide who I date."

"She's mine," Ginny said. "How about we all feel sorry for me for a bit? I get to have _my mother_ teach me Defense."

Theo looped an arm around her shoulder. "You're all right, princess," he said. "Anyone want to go have a nip in the herb garden?"

"It's not even lunch," Hermione said. "How about we go down to the lake and throw rocks into the water instead?"

"I can't," Ginny said. "Quidditch tryout prep work."

"Want help?" Draco asked her.

"From you?" Ginny raised her brows. "You'd try to get me to fill the team with people Slytherin could beat. I like you Malfoy, and I'm happy to fly with you, but I'm not an idiot."

He smirked at her for a moment before she waved and took off toward Gryffindor Tower. "Arithmancy review?" he asked, turning to Theo and Hermione.

"Sounds good," Hermione said, still working on controlling her breathing, but before they could leave the castle they were stopped by the sight a tiny dark-eyed Slytherin girl who was crying in the hall.

Draco dropped down to a squat and poked at her. "Hey," he said. "Sarah, right?" The girl nodded with a sniffle. "What's the matter?" he asked. She looked down the hall and all three eighth years followed her gaze to spot a group of fourth or fifth year Gryffindors who were laughing as they turned a corner. "Did they say something?" Draco demanded.

"They called me a… a… a Death Eater," she choked out around her tears. "Said all the Slytherins were - "

Hermione cut her off. "Idiots," she said. "There are no Death Eaters anymore."

The girl looked at Draco nervously and then up at Hermione. Hermione knelt down too and looked at the girl. "I'm serious," she said. "Draco may have the Mark but was too young to go around joining some band of crazy people. I mean, he couldn't even go to the candy store in Hogsmeade without a signed permission slip. Can a person who can't buy candy on his own really make the decision to join an evil army?"

The girl shook her head, her eyes wide.

"Do you like candy quills?" Hermione asked her. At that the girl nodded. "Good," Hermione said, "because I got way too many the last time I was in Honeydukes and we're about to go to the lake and study and you can come with us and help me get rid of some of this extra weight I've been hauling around."

"Can Trista come too?" Sarah asked.

"Is she one of the other firsties?" Theo asked. Sarah nodded and he sighed. "Sure," he said. "If we're babysitting one, why not two?"

"Theo," Hermione hissed.

"Run and get her," Draco said with a sigh of his own. "We'll be outside in the herb garden."

The girl wiped at the back of her eyes and darted away.

"Are we really going to adopt every sad firstie?" Theo asked in an undertone once the girl was gone. "Giving her candy, Hermione?"

Hermione crossed her arms and looked at him and he groaned. "Fine," he said. "We'll sugar the kid up and pat her on the head and tell her it's okay to be a Slytherin instead of studying derivatives and limits. Fine." He glowered. "Where's the Gryffindor kid who needs adopting? Why is it only ours who get picked on in the halls?"

Hermione patted his arm. "Give it time," she said. "The little Gryffindors will arrive soon enough and then you'll complain about that." She glanced back toward the Defense classroom. "At least we won't be a bunch of prejudiced arseholes taking biases out on fucking kids."

"I'm tired of having to be the grown up," Draco muttered. "I just want to find some secluded spot and snog you until dinner."

"I think I've had to be the grown up around here since I was eleven," Hermione said.

"Yeah, I know," said Draco. "I'm just tired of it." He pulled her against him and dropped a kiss on her temple and she leaned against him as though he were the only pillar that could hold her upright.


	49. Chapter 49

"So," Theo said as they trooped down to the lake, two little girls with green ties and wide eyes following them. "We'll review everything we should have done in six years then learn to do a Patronus?"

Hermione kicked at a clod of dirt. "I guess," she said. "Sounds like fun." She sighed. "The warding magic should be good. She's rather… she's got a clock that tells where all her family is. I mean, whether they're safe or at work or whatever."

Draco looked impressed. "Person specific tracking magic?" he asked. "That's… will we learn to do that?"

Hermione shrugged. Sarah asked, her voice tiny, "Can you really all make a Patronus? I read about them, how Harry Potter had one just like his dad's and how Professor Snape had one that was like his true love even after all these years and - "

"You probably shouldn't believe everything you read in the _Prophet,"_ Hermione suggested. "It can be a bit lurid and dramatic."

"Potter's was the same as his father's?" Draco asked. "Does that mean anything?" His voice was deceptively casual but Hermione gave him a searching look anyway.

"It can," she said.

"What's yours?" little Trista asked, pulling the candy quill Hermione had given her from her mouth. "A dragon? A lion? A _griffin_?" she sounded hopeful it was something big and dramatic."

"No," Hermione said. "Just an otter."

"What did you say yours was?" Theo dropped down to sit on a rock by the lake side and didn't look at Draco as he reached into his bag to pull out an Arithmancy book. "A dog?"

"No," Draco glared at his friend.

"What is it?" Sarah asked as she sat down. She added, sounding wistful, "I wish I could do one. Maybe then I wouldn't be so scared all the time."

Hermione sat next to her. "Well," she said, "the first step is thinking of your happiest memory, something that brings you nothing but joy. The stronger the memory and the better you are at focusing on it, the easier it is to make a Patronus. When you're scared, you could try concentrating on what makes you happiest and that way when it's time to learn how to do the spell you'll be ahead of everyone else."

"What do you think of?" the girl asked her.

"It's changed," Hermione said. She picked some of the long strands of brown grass and began plaiting them. "When I first learned it I thought of the day I found out I was a witch and not just weird or crazy."

"What do you think of now?" Theo asked.

She shot him a dirty look. "None of your business," she said.

"Is yours a dragon?" Trista asked Draco. She seemed to think that even if Hermione had a boring Patronus surely at least the boy _named_ 'dragon' would have a better one.

"No," he said. "Just an otter too."

"Both otters?" Sarah looked at him, her eyes wide. "But that means…"

Draco looked at Hermione who became very interested in the grass in her hand.

"Wow," Trista said. "No wonder you sit with us instead of your own House."

Hermione mumbled something and Theo laughed. She turned and glared at him and he held his hands out as if to fend off the looks he was getting from every direction. "Maybe you could show me how to do it?" he suggested. "I think our little charges here might find that more interesting than partial derivatives."

"I'll derive you," Hermione muttered. Theo smirked at her and she sighed. "Can you think of something happy? A happy memory?"

There was a pause that grew long enough to be uncomfortable before Theo said, at last, "I can try."

Hermione pulled her wand out and demonstrated the movement and the charm and her otter sprang from her wand and rolled in the grass, batting a rock back and forth between its silvery paws in delight. Sarah and Trista ooo-ed and aww-ed at the tiny creature and then turned expectantly to Theo, waiting to see what he would make.

He made a puff of silver smoke that evaporated upon leaving his wand. Both girls looked disappointed. Theo's eyes shuttered and he said, "Well, that's it I guess."

"It's hard," Hermione said. "There's a reason people were so impressed Harry could do it so young. Just… think about what your happiest memory is and work on just focusing on that."

"That's probably the problem," Theo said. He stood up. "I just remembered something I had to do back in the dorm. I'll see you both at lunch." He nodded to the little girls. "Ladies."

The girls both giggled as the lanky near-adult scooped up his bag and walked off. Hermione and Draco watched him go and exchanged worried looks.


	50. Chapter 50

Draco hovered above the ground on his broom as he tried to find the Snitch. He could see Hermione and Theo, laying on a blanket at a corner of the pitch looking up at what could only be black figures silhouetted against a dark blue sky. He'd left them with a thermos of hot chocolate - probably spiked by now, knowing Theodore - snuggled up to one another like puppies. He'd never known Theodore to be quite so physically affectionate with anyone, much less a girl, but the pair of them seemed to draw strength from one another in their mutual loneliness the same way he was made new by flying.

Ginny Weasley was swooping up and down the pitch. While he used stillness to try and find the Snitch, she flung herself through the air as if vigor alone could bring the thing to her. He turned and looked down the other direction, trying to spot any movement, any golden flickers, and there, hovering right at the end of the stands as if to hide itself, was the Snitch. He exhaled and began flying toward the stand next to the one with he Snitch in almost slow motion, lazy and unconcerned and still searching.

Ginny was not fooled.

She began racing at him, at the stand, with nothing held back. Her hair flew out behind her and the wind forced her clothing against her body, highlighting every curve, as Draco picked up the pace just a little. He watched her without seeming to as he did the arial equivalent of loping toward the wrong stand while she barreled down on him. When it was too late for her to change course, especially at the velocity she was traveling, he darted over to the correct stand and snatched the golden ball and crowed loudly right as Ginny crashed into the wall.

"Shite!" He flew down to the ground where she was cradling what looked like a broken wrist in her other arm as she lay on the grass. "Are you okay?"

She gave him a wan smile. "I'm fine, just…" She stood up and winced. "Maybe you could take my broom and have Hermione put it back in my room while I go to the Infirmary? I think this might need a little attention."

"Merlin, of course." Draco grabbed her broom and offered her his arm. "Do you need me to walk you up there?"

Hermione and Theodore had come running as soon as they heard the crash. "Are you okay?" Hermione asked. She looked at the way Ginny was holding her wrist. "You're not okay. Shite. I've never seen you crash like that. How fast were you flying?"

"Pretty fast," Ginny admitted as she made a face against the pain. "I'm fine, though. It'll be fine."

"Bullshite," Theodore said.

"It will," Ginny insisted, "I just need - "

"Draco, walk her up to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione ordered.

"Take her broom back," Draco said and Hermione nodded.

"I don't want her to know it was a Quidditch accident," Ginny said as they began to make their way across the pitch. "I don't want to deal with my mother asking about this and having a hissy fit I'm flying with Draco. I'll tell Pomfrey I was running in the halls and tripped."

Hermione was about to say that would never work when she stopped to reconsider. "It's a stupid excuse," she said, "but Pomfrey doesn't really ask questions."

"None of them do," Draco muttered. "Oh, you got turned into a ferret? Totally normal. Oh, you are suddenly pale and not playing Quidditch? Wouldn't want to ask if everything's okay until it's too bloody late to matter."

"In all fairness," Theodore said, "you're always pale."

"You can't remember where you were all last Saturday and there's red paint under your nails," Ginny said, looking at Draco. "Don't worry about it. Here, have some candy and write an essay."

They reached the door to the castle and Hermione gave Ginny a long, searching look. "It'll be fine," Ginny insisted. "It's just a broken wrist. She set a lot worse last year without asking any questions. She won't ask any questions about this."

"The longer we stand here talking, the longer she's in pain," Draco said.

Theodore nodded and summoned the blanket and thermos he and Hermione had shared earlier. "Do you need me to walk you up?" he asked Hermione, braced to walk her up to the lions against his own inclination if she so desired.

She patted him on the arm. "I know the way," she said.

Theo took a long swig from the thermos. "I'll see you in the morning then," he said.


	51. Chapter 51 (The first Recovery Group)

Hermione slipped into the classroom and fussed a little with rearranging the couches. She tugged a pillow this way and moved a side table that way and moved a bowl of crisps from one table to another and then back again.

"Nervous?" Hannah asked her, wiping her own hands on her jumper.

"Yeah," Hermione admitted.

Draco came in behind her and, taking her hand, led her to one of the couches. "I can't do this if you're not here," he said very quietly in her ear. "Just… don't - "

"I'll sit here the whole time," she said.

Theodore came in and refused to sit. He just leaned up against the wall and stared at the still empty couches with a blank expression. "Is this going to be one of those parties no one comes to?" he asked.

"It doesn't start for five more minutes," Hannah said with a frown. "I'm sure people will - "

"I'm here, all right?" Pansy stomped into the room, her overpriced, ostentatious bag swinging from her shoulder, and glared at Hannah. "I said I'd be here and I'm here." She slammed her body down into a chair so no one could sit next to her and looked at the bowls of crisps. "Is that it?" she asked. "I think for this there should be beer, and not butterbeer either."

She looked at Theo and he patted his pocket and she smiled.

"You shouldn't drink if you're taking - " Hermione began.

"Trust me, swot, I know," Pansy said. "Doesn't mean I don't want to."

Neville slipped in the door and walked with diffidence to the couch next to Hermione's. "Hey," he said to her.

"Hey, yourself," she said.

"Interesting first week," he said.

"Yeah," Hermione said as the little second year who had defended Draco the first night came inside the door and stood, uncertainly, on the edge of the room.

"Is this just for - "

"No!" Hannah realized she might have sounded too enthusiastic so she said again, moderating her tone, "it's for anyone who wants to come."

The boy nodded and, looking around, sidled over to the couch where Hermione and Draco were sitting. Once there he positioned himself on the same seat as they were but as far away from them as he could get. He smiled at Hermione and she smiled back. "It was brave of you to come in here," she offered.

"Isn't bravery supposed to be our thing?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "You still are," she said. He huddled back into the arm of the couch and didn't answer her.

Padma walked into the room. She looked tiny in her giant jumper and she pulled a chair over to the lit fireplace and sat next to it. "I'm always cold," she said to no one in particular.

Susan Bones loped in, her mouth painted in a garish red that was wrong for her skin tone, and sat next to Neville. "Hi everyone," she said. "What a summer, huh?"

"Where'd you stay?" Neville asked her.

"Well," she said a little too brightly, "As I'm sure some of you know the Death Eaters murdered my whole family. Parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone." She flashed a smile first at Draco who dropped his chin even lower, then at Theodore, who blinked at her in slow motion like a cat but didn't otherwise respond. If she was disappointed by the their lack of reaction she didn't show it, just said, "So I got to stay with some distant cousins. Muggles. It was really fun."

"Really?" Pansy drawled.

"Oh yes," Susan said. "There's nothing better than a houseful of people who aren't quite sure what to make of the suddenly orphaned 17-year-old who cries every night. They told me to put it behind me and move on, try to be more normal. I think I heard the phrase 'stiff upper lip' every day for two months." Her smile contorted to a grimace. "Someone please pass me the crisps if you don't mind."

Neville reached over and grabbed the nearest bowl and handed it to her.

"So, anyway," she said. "I'm here because at least at school I have a place to sleep where no one tells me I… I… I… that it was… that they…." And then she broke down into racking sobs that filled the room and everyone shifted where they were sitting, unsure of what to say.

It was Theo who finally broke the silence. "Your Muggle relatives sound like fucking arseholes," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - People have been asking when we get nothing but a cute dramione moment and it's coming. Chapter 55. I had forgotten to include just moments of the two of them because I was so focused on getting the plot lines for all eight 8th years and Ginny established but they are coming._**


	52. Chapter 52

Susan stared at Theo when he announced his opinion of her relatives. There was another long silence and everyone looked from him to her until she said, "Damn right. Fucking arseholes," and the whole room relaxed.

Hannah took a deep breath and then said, "So… I wrote to Professor McGongagall, I mean, uh, Headmistress McGonagall over the summer and said that maybe we could all use some place to talk about things that happened. I'm sure we all had a bit of a rough year - "

"Understatement," Pansy muttered.

" - last year and maybe it would help to talk about it."

"I don't 'do' talking about feelings," Pansy said, her eyes narrowed. "And even if I did why would I trust you people?"

"Just a place to hang out?" Hannah said. "A place where we listen to anyone who wants to talk and if you just want to sit that's fine too. There's a chess set on one of the shelves and - "

"It's important we don't - " Neville interrupted her and then tried again. "We have to all promise that we won't… anything anyone says here doesn't get blabbed all over school." He swallowed hard. "This has to be a safe place."

"Your fee fees are not interesting enough for me to talk about," Pansy said. Hannah gave her a long, steady look until she added, in a mutter, "But, yeah, no sharing outside of here, I agree."

One by one everyone in the room agreed to keep anything shared private, no matter how seemingly innocuous. When they were done Hannah asked, "So… how was everyone else's summer?"

"Shitty." Theo spoke first. "My father's in prison, my house is huge and empty, and I had nothing to do except sit around and feel like dirt." He looked around, his eyes finally coming to rest on Neville. "Next."

"Weird," Neville said. "Everyone wanted a part of me." He gave a funny grin to Hermione. "I kind of realized what it was like being Harry, I think." The grin faded and he sighed. "It wasn't that great. I mean, at least my gran was finally proud of me, and it was suddenly okay to not be that powerful magically - "

"Neville," Hermione started to say.

"I'm not," he said. "It's okay, I'm okay with that. I'm good with plants and I can wield a mean sword and I'm pretty good at organizing people - "

"Yeah," Padma whispered from her seat.

" - but I'm never going to be the greatest mage or the strongest wizard and I… I'm okay with that now." He looked around at everyone. "I wanted to be like all of you," he said. "You're all… Merlin, Hermione, you're _scary_ , and Malfoy is too, and Nott." He nodded at Theodore who nodded back. Neville looked down and muttered something and when Theodore coughed he said, "I fucking feel guilty that it took a war where people died for me to not feel like I'm worthless because I'm not the wizard my father was."

There was another long pause before Pansy said, "Only a goddamned Gryffindor would feel guilty for not feeling worthless."

"Are you always a bitch, Parkinson?" Susan demanded. "I've known you for seven years and you've never said a nice thing ever."

Hermione watched Pansy stiffen and open her mouth but it was Draco who spoke first. "Pansy's always been nice to me," he said. "She's nice to Millie. Nice to Theo. Nice to little kids in our House. You just don't see that because you don't see us as anything but the enemy. When you know that people already hate you for wearing green it's usually not worth the bother to try to befriend them."

"Did you ever even try?" Susan asked. When he didn't answer she looked at Theodore. "How about you?"

Theodore pulled himself off the wall and said, "I think I'm done." He held a hand out toward Pansy who rose from her seat, snatched up her bag, and crossed the room to him. Hermione could see him squeeze her hand tightly once he had it in his grasp, could see the way the girl swallowed and blinked rapidly a couple of times, her face tilted so her hair mostly hid her from the view of the room. At the door Theo turned and looked at Susan who seemed to wither under his gaze. "I never tried," he said. "Would it have mattered? Really?" He looked around the room. "When I was eleven years old I realized three-quarters of this school hated me for the colour of my tie."

"You - we - could try now," Hannah said to his back but he'd already shut the door. She turned back to the room and put a smile on her face. "Well, that went well."

"Not to sound like Pansy," Hermione said with disbelief, "but are you high?"

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - A second chapter because of the anon ask on tumblr_**


	53. Chapter 53

"I like your Recovery Group," Pansy said over breakfast. "I felt really welcomed. Nurtured. It was a nice, safe place to talk about the traumas of last year."

Hermione ignored her. Draco flashed a worried frown at first her then Pansy as he reached for a slice of toast and some jam.

"I mean," Pansy went on, "the stuff where Millie and I used to cry ourselves to sleep while Daphne wrote owl after owl begging her parents to transfer her to Beauxbatons and if they wouldn't move her to please, please at least move Astoria and then worried they were dead because they never responded, none of that was upsetting at all." She spooned some eggs onto her plate. "And poor Tracey - you remember her? - she didn't have it rough at all."

"I don't think I knew her," Hermione said. She and Susan Bones had gotten into a screaming match after Theo and Pansy had left Recovery Group the night before. Susan had called her biased because of her 'romance', the word said in the scathing tone of condemnation, and she had called Susan names of which she felt ashamed in the cool light of morning. She had compared the girl unfavorably to her dead aunt. "Madam Bones wouldn't have just condemned people out of hand for their House," she'd said. "But I guess you aren't made of the same stuff as she was."

She'd made Susan cry. She'd made her cry and then ground her down even more.

Draco had stared at her, his mouth gaping like a hooked fish. He'd never seen her really go after anyone before; she suspected it made him nervous. She was afraid he didn't like it, that he'd pull away from her. She hadn't meant to attack the girl quite so viciously but the attitude toward the snakes had been the final straw in a week of stress and Susan had gotten the venom she hadn't spit out at her own Housemates, at Molly Weasley who continued to simply not see her, or at the assorted students who snipped and jabbed and sneered at her and Draco. And Theo. And finally Pansy, who Hermione didn't even like but who had shown up and gotten attacked for it.

"Tracey was - is - a half-blood," Pansy said now as she poured herself some tea. "And a Slytherin, so all your little friends hated her because, you know, green is the color of all evil, and the Carrows had it out for her because she was just dirty, dirty, dirty."

"She didn't come back?" Hermione asked though she knew the answer, of course. Not many students in her year had. Even Luna had opted to forgo her seventh year and go out on some fool's quest to find animals that didn't exist rather than return to a place of torment. She wasn't the only one who had decided it was better to tilt at windmills than to face these halls, N.E.W.T.s be damned.

Pansy snorted at he idea of Tracey returning. "I think her parents moved to the continent. If she sets foot on British soil ever again I'd be surprised."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said.

"Yeah, well, me too," said Pansy. "And that and a handful of sickles will buy you a cup of tea on the train." She took a deep breath. "And those crisps. Who the fuck just puts out a couple of bowls of crisps at something like that?"

Hermione had been sipping from her tea and when Pansy complained about the snacks at Recovery Group she almost choked. After she had sputtered a few times and coughed and put her cup down to wheeze, she said, "Excuse me?"

"Crisps," Pansy said again in tones of exaggerated patience. "It's like that Hannah Abbott girl has never hosted a party or anything. You need chocolate and something to drink." Hermione started to say something about underage students and Pansy waved a hand at her impatiently. "I'm not talking about whiskey, though, frankly, that's a better idea than crisps, but I'm going to make truffles for the next one."

"You're going back?" Hermione stared at her. She hadn't expected that. "After you were such a bitch to Neville? Neville who's never hurt anyone in his whole life?"

They all looked at her and Theo made a discreet cough. "I know you weren't here last year, Hermione, but Neville's not exactly the fragile flower you might remember."

"You were still really nasty to him," Hermione said. She drummed her fingers on the table and said, bracing herself for the response, "You should apologize."

Pansy looked over at the Gryffindor table. Neville was talking to Ginny and no one was paying attention to the Slytherins. "Yeah, I suppose," she muttered. "Sometimes I go too far." Then she smirked a little and took some toast. "Besides, do you think I'm going to let some dumb bitch like Susan Bones drive me away from anything?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another day, and other chapter._**


	54. Chapter 54

Pansy cornered Neville after breakfast. "I'm sorry," she said.

He took her extended hand. "No hard feelings, I hope," he said.

She gave him a long look. "I have a hell of a lot of hard feelings," she said. When he gave her a perplexed look she said, "How was that little hidey hole where you protected people from the Carrows last year?" He began to pale as she said, "Didn't quite have room for anyone in green, did you?"

"Malfoy," Neville said in protest. "Crabbe. Goyle."

"Thirteen year old girls who cried themselves to sleep every night," Pansy said. "Fourteen year old boys with scars on their backs because they were never quite vicious enough and needed more motivation." She looked him up and down. "Did you think being a pureblood was protection from them?"

He swallowed at that. "I knew it wasn't," he said. "We just all thought - "

"That Slytherins are evil. Yeah. I know. Still, sorry I was a little verbally snippy to you. I'll see you in Herbology." She left him there, guilt appearing in his eyes for perhaps the first time, and walked away.

The second week of classes was much like the first. Hermione, Draco, and Theo sat in Arithmancy and made a point of laughing and teasing one another as they waited for class to start while the two Ravenclaw boys sat behind them, sullen, self-righteous, and excluded. Professor Vector went over the homework and almost cooed with some of the techniques Hermione and her study partners had used to solve the problems. Their unstated rivals had gotten everything correct but had done it all by the book and gotten merely a nod at their accuracy and an admonition that advanced Arithmancy required creativity. Never, Hermione thought, had showing off felt so good.

She received permission from Professor Slughorn to brew Draught of Peace for herself and Pansy. The rotund Potions master popped a slice of sugared pineapple in his mouth and murmured that she was on her way to a fabulous career and was it true that she and Mr. Malfoy were an item and would she remember him to the boy's parents? She smiled and didn't say that Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy were unlikely to take a comment from her in quite the light Slughorn hoped.

Defense Against the Dark Arts remained review. Molly Weasley continued to let her eyes slide over the Slytherin students and Hermione but didn't single them out for any kind of abuse. It was simply as if they weren't there. Despite that, however, Hermione had to admit the class was better organized than any official Defense class she'd taken at Hogwarts. Molly had planned a comprehensive review and that was what she did; the first section was on plants and they went over flora traditionally used in the Dark arts and the classic counters to them. Neville perked up at the topic and when Hermione proposed he lead a study group he gave her his lopsided smile and nodded.

"It's not like we're not used to having to do this on our own," he said. "Having a group just be review for class instead of the actual class will be a relief." They found an empty room and met after dinner one night, Hermione and Neville on one couch, Ginny cross-legged on the floor, Theo and Draco leaning against the wall as if ready to bolt at any moment, Hannah with a bowl of crisps, and Padma curled up on one chair.

Susan stuck her head in the room and said she wouldn't be there. "I have a date," she said.

"Where can you go on a date?" Ginny asked. "We're stuck in a castle in a remote area of Scotland and only allowed to go to the village on special days?"

"This isn't a date about going anywhere," Susan said. "More about coming."

She disappeared and Theo stared after her. "Did she just make a sex pun?" he asked.

"We've only been back… I didn't even know she had a boyfriend," Hermione said. "Not that we're exactly close."

"He's a Ravenclaw," Ginny said, "and I think calling him her boyfriend might be a stretch."

"Oh," Hermione said.

Hannah ignored the byplay and passed the bowl of crisps around. When it reached Padma she waved it away. "No thank you," she said.

"You sure?" Neville asked her. "By the time it gets back to you there might not be any left."

"I'm sure," she said. "But thanks."

Neville pulled out a list of plants most often used in Dark magic - and most likely to appear on a N.E.W.T. exam - and they spent the next hour drilling one another on what the plants were used for and the appropriate counter measures.

"Plangentine," Neville said, reaching the last plant on a list that had included things that strangled anyone who touched them, things that caused instant allergic reactions that stopped breathing, and things that lured people into swamps with beauty that twisted into giant traps that closed around their victims.

"Plangentine can be used to either muffle or enhance shrieks," Theo said. "Added to deadly Potions to silence the agony of the sufferer." He looked out the window. "Not used that often in the last war because who wants to miss out on the fun times of people screaming in pain."

"You can also burn it to provide privacy," Hermione said, "though why you wouldn't just use _muffliato_ I don't know." She shrugged. "It can also be used to enhance hearing. It all depends on the preparation."

"No drama in _muffliato_ " Ginny said. "Dark wizards seem to like smoke and giant snakes and things that loom out of the shadows." She snorted. "Why just do something if you can write it in blood first and cackle in delight over your cleverness."

"Counters?" Neville asked.

"Lunaria," Padma said.

"Common name?" Neville asked

"Honesty," she said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Another day, another chapter (and a reminder that the best way to ask questions is on tumblr).**_


	55. Chapter 55

Draco and Hermione left the Defense study group hand in hand and when Draco leaned over and whispered into her ear she grinned back at him and within moments had pulled him into an empty room and cast the suggested _muffliato._ Draco picked her up and set her on what had once been the professor's desk, a solid block of oak that now served as a home to boxes of broken glassware waiting to be disposed of and, if the shredded paper and cardboard bits were any indication, at least one family of mice.

Hermione used her toes to shove her sensible school shoes off and they hit the floor with a thunk as she wrapped her legs around Draco's waist and slipped her hands into his hair. He mumbled, "I've missed you," around the kisses he was laying at the sides of her mouth.

"I see you every day," she objected. "Every meal. Most classes."

"'snot the same," Draco said. "I miss being alone with you."

"Selfish," Hermione said before she stopped talking for a bit and put all of her attention into kissing the blond who had his hands at her lower back and his mouth on hers.

When he finally broke away from her he said, with a bit of a smirk, "You say selfish like it's a bad thing."

She laughed. "Brat," she said, but she kept her hands tangled in the fine blond hair and didn't let him step back. "How are you doing?" she asked, her voice more serious. "Really? I've had three people tell me you and Ginny are 'a thing' and I should somehow be worried you're shagging in midair."

He shrugged and leaned until his forehead touched hers. "My House is polite," he said. "The little first years seem to think I'm their best friend or something, and people are too scared of Pansy to be overtly nasty. The rest of the school is… I'm coping." He paused for a moment before he asked, almost scared to hear the answer, "You? You aren't worried about Ginny, are you?"

She didn't answer for a long moment and when she did she was subdued. "You have a lot of flaws, Draco, but you're loyal to the point of idiocy. I'd never, ever worry about you being… you aren't going to run off with Ginny. That's not even… I don't think you could behave that way if you wanted to. As to the other, well, my House is not anywhere near polite," she said. "They're too scared of Ginny to really get in my face about you - "

"Smarter than I would have given a bunch of Gryffindors credit for," Draco opined only mostly under his breath.

" - but they let me know in little ways they don't approve. Lots of talking about how great Harry and Ron were during the war, how it's too bad they couldn't come back, stuff like that. Then someone will say something like, 'Well, can you blame Ron?' and look at me." She snorted. "Like Ron has the emotional sensitivity to stay away just because I moved on. He didn't like school, didin't like homework, and is pleased as can be to be in Auror training instead of here. I suspect he might think the best part of the war was getting accepted into that program without N.E.W.T.s."

Draco felt a wave of jealousy pull at him. "How do you know?" he asked, trying not to let the emotion leak into his voice. From the way Hermione twitched he suspected he failed.

"Harry writes me," she said and Draco hated the way he relaxed at that. Harry, who had no interest in Hermione, he could handle Harry, Ginny's boyfriend, he could handle. Given enough time he might even be able to handle Harry as the damn savior he was. Ron was another story altogether. "Harry sends me all sorts of details," Hermione went on. "He and Ron are living at Grimmauld Place and Molly's over there cleaning every weekend."

"I thought she was here," Draco said.

Hermione pulled away from him and shook her head. "As if Arthur could even manage to eat dinner without her there," she scoffed. "No, she floos into Hogwarts every day, then goes home to cook and clean and terrorize everyone into domestic compliance."

"And that could have been your mother-in-law," Draco dared.

Hermione gave an exaggerated shudder. "Dodged a hex with that one," she said.

There was an awkward moment as they both contemplated Narcissa Malfoy. Draco tightened his grip on Hermione and she tipped her face up so he could kiss her again which, grateful for the conversational reprieve, he did."

"Not that I care about Molly Weasley," Hermione said after a bit. Draco snorted at that obvious lie. Hermione had yet to make it through a single class with the woman without needing a Draught of Peace dose and he and Theo had taken to sitting in such a way at meals that Hermione would have to strain to see the High Table and the frumpy ginger professor sitting at it. "I don't," she insisted. "If Ron and I had worked out, I wouldn't have cared she was difficult and pushy and overwhelming; I just would have set some ground rules for when she could come visit and not let her just roll over me." She took a deep breath. "I know people say you marry someone's family, but I'd hope someone would cherish me enough to not let his mother ruin our relationship."

Draco closed his eyes. "You've been spending too much time with Slytherins," he said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hermione said. "I'm talking about Molly Weasley."

Draco opened his eyes and looked at Hermione. She still had her feet wrapped around his waist and her hands around him as if she never planned to let go. "I don't know about Weasley or his harpy of a mother," Draco said, "but I'd never let my mother drive away someone I cared about. I don't plan to live at the Manor again so - "

Hermione interrupted him with another kiss and he was spared having to complete that sentence.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm miserably sick. Ugh. But it's the dramione chapter. I'll try to do another one soon. They're all caught up in awkward school events where I'm writing now and Draco just fled to take a second year flying rather than face his parents. Well, he's not exactly a Gryffindor._**


	56. Chapter 56

Pansy flounced in to the second Recovery Group meeting with a platter of truffles. Hannah, who had just asked if anyone wanted to talk about anything or if they just wanted to relax, startled in her seat. Theo sauntered in behind the chocolate-toting witch and smiled at first Hannah and then Susan. "You did say everyone was welcome?" he asked, the dare mixed with a taunt clear.

Hannah coughed and then said, "Of course."

"Have fun with your Ravenclaw?" Theodore asked Susan as he sat across from her.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Have fun with your booze?" she asked.

"At least it still respects me in the morning," Theodore said. Neville made the choking sound of a swallowed laugh.

Hermione buried her face in her hands as Pansy began walking around the room offering her treats to each person. Draco and Neville both took one each and Draco took a second to hand to Hermione. The tiny Gryffindor who had returned for another meeting took one and then hesitated. "Oh, take another," Pansy said. "You're too skinny, kid." The boy didn't need to be told twice and he grabbed not one but two more. "What's your name?" Pansy asked him.

"Andy," he said with a gulp. "Andrew."

Pansy balanced her tray on one hand and plucked off two more truffles and handed them to him. "Recipe makes a lot and they don't keep," she said. "Eat up, Andy."

"I didn't know you could cook," Hannah said as she picked a truffle off the tray.

"Because I grew up rich and spoiled?" Pansy asked. Hannah looked guilty and Pansy smirked at the other woman's discomfort. "Well, I can't be bothered to make shepherd's pie or anything, true enough, but I'm quite good at anything with chocolate."

She held the tray out toward Padma who shook her head without looking up. "No thank you," she said.

"Is is because you're Muslim or something?" Pansy demanded.

"I'm not a Muslim, I'm a Hindu," Padma said, lifting her head to face Pansy down.

"Whatever," Pansy said, "If there's some - "

"Not 'whatever'," Padma said. "They're very different - "

"I don't care," Pansy said, "I just want to be - "

"Well maybe you should care," Padma said, her voice taking on a bit of an edge. "Maybe you should try to think about being somewhat aware that people exist outside your bubble."

"I just want to make a snack you can fucking eat," Pansy raised her voice to what could almost be called yelling. "So if you've got some kind of religious food restriction you should think about telling people so they can make food you can enjoy instead of just politely saying no every time."

The two women glared at one another until Padma muttered, "I'm just not hungry."

"How can you not be hungry for truffles?" Theo asked. "It's not like it's a meal or anything."

"I don't want them," Padma said. "Please stop." She huddled down into her sweater and tucked her chin into the large, loose, cowl neckline.

"Is it a dietary thing," Hannah asked. "You never eat the crisps either. I feel really awful if we've been trying to get you to eat things you - "

"I'm vegetarian," Padma said, "so there's that, but, really, I'm just not hungry. I ate a lot at dinner."

"It was steak and kidney pie," Hermione said.

"And some vegetables," Padma said. "And rolls."

"The food here must be really hard if you can't eat meat," Andy said, his mouth full of truffle. "But there's not meat in these. Promise."

"He's right," Pansy said. "I resisted the urge to add hamburger to the chocolate.".

Hannah took a deep breath. "Well, I'll eat yours, Padma," she said. "But maybe we could talk to someone about them having a main dish you can eat at dinner every night?"

Padma flashed her a grateful smile. "That would be very kind of you," she said. "It's been tricky so far this year and I know everyone's trying to make things seem normal so I didn't want to - "

"Done," Hannah said. "The food here could use a little less steak and kidney pie and a little more, well, anything else."

Draco make a small noise and Padma looked over at him. "You have something to add?" she asked.

"I was going to offer to see if the elves would bring up some tea," he said. "Might go well with the chocolate and - "

"That would be nice," Hermione said, taking a second truffle. "These are really good, Pansy. I'm going to end up fat as, I dunno, a beached whale or something, if you keep bringing these."

"You're too skinny too," was all Pansy said but she looked pleased at the way her truffles were getting snatched off the tray.

"After that year on the run," Hermione agreed, taking a third. "Didn't eat a lot."

"So," Hannah said, "anyone want to talk about last year?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Many thanks to readingserpent who is beta reading my Padma chapters to help me try to avoid cultural missteps. Obviously, any remaining screw ups are my fault. And, though I don't thank her every chapter, my adoration for shayalonnie knows no bounds as she reads every chapter and keeps me going with her alpha-reading love._**


	57. Chapter 57

When Hannah asked if anyone wanted to talk about the previous year the room became silent save for the sounds of people eating truffles. Hannah hesitated and then said, "Maybe tell why we all came back?" She was obviously reaching for something they could all talk about instead of sitting around in silence or quizzing Padma on her dietary restrictions.

"I'm twelve," Andrew said. "Not much choice." He shrugged. "I figured it couldn't be worse than last year." He glanced at Draco who was staring at his shoes. "I'm glad you're back."

Draco looked up at that. "Why?" he asked the boy, perplexed.

The boy looked away. "You were just one of the good ones," he mumbled. Draco stared at the boy until Hermione nudged him and he dropped his gaze. That one of the children he berated himself about remembered him with something other than total loathing and fear seemed impossible to him.

Susan crossed her arms and said in response to Hannah's question, "No where else to go."

"This is less depressing than home," Theo said. "It's huge and empty."

"Yeah," Draco muttered in agreement. "I mean, it's not empty but it's huge and it's tainted."

"I need a N.E.W.T. to go into business," Pansy said. "Purely pragmatic." She hesitated for a moment and added, "Plus, my loving mother has this charming idea that I should get married as soon as possible." Theo laughed and Pansy eyed him. "She thinks you're a prime candidate, Nott, so don't go too crazy with the hee haws."

Padma said, "My parents want me to get married too."

"Where's Parvati?" Hannah asked.

"Not here," Padma said. "With Lavender… gone… she didn't want to come back."

Theo was still processing the idea that someone might think he'd be a good match for Pansy. His mouth was opening and closing and he finally got out, "But I don't - "

"I know, sweetie," Pansy said. "It's okay."

"We all know," Susan said. "Trust me."

"Know what?" Andrew asked.

"I'm gay," Theo said.

"Oh." Andrew looked at the truffle platter. "Does anyone mind if I have the last one?"

Hermione levitated the tray toward the boy with a sigh and let him grab the last chocolate ball.

"No one finds you that interesting, Theo," Pansy said. "Except my mother, and her motivations are suspect."

"I think he's interesting," Neville objected. He'd been silent so far and Pansy startled at the sound of his voice. Theodore looked up and then down, suddenly very interested in his shoe laces.

"You're like the nicest person alive, though, Longbottom," Pansy said. "I bet you listen to little old ladies talk abut their collection of Licensed Commemorative Harry Potter Plates and fetch them tea and tell them, no, really, do go on."

"Do they really have plates with Potter's face on them?" Draco asked, half fascinated, half horrified. When Pansy smirked and nodded he began to grin. "I know what I'm getting Ginny for Christmas," he said.

"That is not nice," Hermione said, trying not to laugh.

"Why did you come back?" Pansy asked her. "Since apparently the original idea of 'place you can just hang out' has disappeared and now we're oversharing."

"I'm not a professional at this," Hannah muttered. "I'm doing the best I can. Let's see you do better." The 'bitch' she didn't say seemed to hang in the air until Hermione spoke.

"To hide," Hermione said to Pansy with a shrug. "Because I didn't really have anywhere else to go. Because the castle really did need repair and every wand helped."

"How about you?" Pansy asked Hannah. "You're quick with the questions today. How about you answer one of them?"

"I needed to," Hannah said. "Just… I couldn't have it end that way." She shook her head as if that would chase away bad thoughts. "Anyone have any ideas for Rebuilding Day?"

Silence and confused looks met her. "What day?" Hermione asked at last.

Hannah looked uncomfortable. "Maybe that wasn't supposed to be… they're going to announce it at dinner. I, uh, I skip meals sometimes so I thought they already… I'm sorry."

"Well, you've said it now," Susan said, "let the cat out of the proverbial bag and all that. So what is this Rebuilding Day? Do they plan to make us all go out and pick up rubbish or something?"

Hannah shook her head. "It's like a Parent's Day. We're supposed to have little booths and sell things and the money will be used to build a memorial to fallen students."

Draco gave Hermione a panicked look. She slipped her fingers into his and said, "We'll do it together. We can sell - "

"Carrot cake," Theo said. "Or ginger snaps." Draco and Hermione both looked at him and he spread his hands in a gesture of confused innocence. "What? People like ginger snaps."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you everyone for your lovely thoughts and well wishes. I'm back to being mostly functional again. Viruses - why must they plague us so?_**

 ** _I pinned a Harry Potter plate on the pinterest board for this fic. Pinterest at /colubrina/rebuilding/ And, as usual, tumblr is the easiest way for me to answer questions because FF's mobile capabilities are laughable. My blog name is, so creatively, colubrina._**


	58. Chapter 58

Headmistress McGonagall announced Rebuilding Day at dinner a few nights later. The day was planned to formally show the public - meaning the _Prophet_ and the Ministry - that school had been rebuilt; she encouraged students to sign up for booths so they could sell things to raise enough money to build a memorial. "There will also be games," she said, "with prizes for fastest fliers in each year as well as who can get the most Quaffles through the rings in 2 minutes." Nothing sounded too horrible until she added the dreaded words, "and all your parents will be invited up for the weekend."

Hermione, who had been ignoring the speech in favor of ladling soup into her bowl, visibly wilted when she heard that and Draco leaned over and whispered that tactlessness appeared to be something in which school administrators specialized. Hermione laughed a little at his gibe. Theo was watching Neville at the Gryffindor table, who had shaken his head at the comment that 'all' the parents would be up for the event but seemed otherwise fine.

"Do you think I can convince mine to stay away," Pansy asked. "Merlin, how embarrassing. You know my mum will just sidle up to Draco's dad and start trying to sell me to to him like a prize heifer." She stabbed her knife into her food and began to mimic her mother. "'She's so sweet and so good at her classes and so eager to please and she's such a nice girl - '"

"Has your mother even met you?" Hermione interrupted her.

Pansy tossed her hair and sniffed. "I was presented for inspection by the governess every Saturday at two, I'll have you know." Hermione must have looked horrified because Pansy relented and admitted it hadn't been that bad but that, no, she wasn't really close to her parents. "I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with the elves, to be honest."

"I wonder how Susan…" They all turned to look at the Hufflepuff table. Susan had a too bright smile on her face, her back to McGonagall, and was chatting with a boy who looked gobsmacked by the sudden attention. Theodore frowned at her and the boy, who was slipping a hand under the edge of Susan's skirt as she leaned forward to murmur something into his ear, something he apparently appreciated.

"Like I can't find a boyfriend on my own," Pansy was muttering. "It's as if my parents think I have a squint and spots and a stammer and a clubfoot all at once and they have to buy me a date because it's not possible anyone would ever look at me twice otherwise."

"No offense, Pans," Draco said, "but if they're looking to pay someone to take you off their hands, well, my family might not be the best choice what with the whole already being filthy rich thing."

"Thank Merlin," Pansy said. "You are way too needy for my tastes."

"Love you too, Pans," Draco said.

She shrugged.

Theo eyed her. "So who is this boy who looked at you twice?" he asked. Pansy didn't answer and instead began poking through the dish of roasted root vegetables in front of her, collecting all the remaining beets and moving them to her plate. "Pansy," he drew the word out and she continued to ignore him. "I know you," he said. "You wouldn't be this smug and annoyed at their matchmaking if you didn't already have some trump card you weren't playing."

"I do have a life aside from boys," Pansy said, not looking at Theo. "There's school, the Kneazle plan, Millie. So many things to think about. I don't need to be looking at silver patterns quite yet."

"How'd you meet him?" Theo pressed her, "Since he's obviously not a student here."

"Not that it's any of your business," Pansy said, "But he's older and we met over the summer."

"How much older?" Hermione asked.

"Eight years," Pansy said. "And I don't know if anything's going to come of it and I'm not telling you who it is but we've been writing and he's got some ideas about animal husbandry that Millie and I are probably going to implement."

"Eight?" Draco set his fork down and looked at Pansy. "Are you sure he's not trying to take advantage of you?"

She stabbed at beet, lifted it to her mouth and said, before she took a bite, "If so, he's an idiot. I'm in boarding school in Scotland. What advantage would that give him, exactly?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Well, on tumblr I said hit the magic round number of reviews and I'd post an extra chapter and y'all took that seriously!_**

 ** _Any guesses as to the identity of Pansy's male friend?_**


	59. Chapter 59

Pansy didn't only know how to cook things with chocolate; she had an in with the house elves and got a pass to the kitchen where she bossed her fellow eighth years around with no mercy until they had hundreds of gingersnaps baked and packaged up with some kind of showy cellophane and tied with ribbons.

Hermione wiped her hand over her forehead and ignored the elf who hadn't stopped glaring at her for five hours. The trays of biscuits looked beautiful and she had to admit that Pansy Parkinson had arranged the whole thing save for setting up the actual booth; they'd left that to Neville, Theo, and Draco who had mumbled sexist excuses about not knowing their way around kitchens and how they'd be better at other stuff and fled.

"Wimps," Susan had said. Now she popped one of the broken biscuits in her mouth and leaned against the big center island. "Bet they're sorry now," she said. "We get to eat all the discards and they get, what? To chew on nails and sawdust left over from assembling the booth.

"And paint," Padma said with a grin. "They have to clean up any paint they spilled and we get to - "

"Wash dishes," Hannah said, looking over the piles of bowls.

Pansy snorted and pulled out her wand. "The boys may be a bunch of idiots but I know how to clean up." Three charms later the dishes were washing themselves in one of the giant sinks and all five girls had cups of hot chocolate in their hands. Padma set hers down on the counter after just a few sips but the rest of them drank with sighs of pleasure.

Ginny stuck her head around the corner of the doorframe. "Can I sneak a biscuit?" she asked.

Pansy waved a hand toward the plate of broken ones. "Help yourself," she said. "Gingersnaps for our ginger."

Ginny snorted but grabbed a handful and began munching. "These are good," she said. "Damn, Pansy, you can really cook."

"Glad you think so," Pansy said.

Ginny eyed the self-cleaning dishes and asked, "Is that your work too?"

"You know I'm no good at household charms," Hermione said.

"Me neither," Susan admitted.

"They're boring," Hannah said, looking a little guilty. "I know they're useful but - "

"Better that than cleaning dishes by hand," Pansy said. "The elves at home told me I had to clean up my own messes and chocolate is _really_ messy to work with so I found a book and practiced and now I can pretty much clean anything." She glanced down at her uniform which was covered in flour and had a dried smear of yellow batter where she'd wiped her hand on her skirt. "Laundry too. I can get whites whiter than any hearth witch you've ever met."

Ginny shook her head in obvious admiration. "I'm shite at all that," she said. "You'll have to show me how to get white socks actually white because they always come back from the laundry kind of beige."

"You have to do a sun charm," Pansy said. "Sun naturally bleaches whites but you can fake it with a _sol lucet_." She gave Ginny a quizzical look. "Isn't this kind of your housewife mum's thing? Why not ask her?"

Ginny made a face. "I'd rather not." She pulled a stool up near the plate of biscuits and popped another one in her mouth. "She got her opinions and, I mean, I love her and all, but she's already sure that what I need to do is get married days after graduation and start popping out babies for Harry. Ask a question about laundry and she'd go on for hours."

"Does she know about you and Draco?" Hermione asked.

"You mean that we fly a couple times a week, that we're chums, that, you know, I don't think he's evil incarnate?"

"Pretty much," Hermione said.

"Hell no," Ginny said. "All Slytherins are evil, he more than most, and the lectures I would get?" She shook her head. "There's bravery and then there's just being stupid."

"We'll make a Slytherin out of you yet," Pansy said. "Very pragmatic of you."

"Or very kind," Hannah said. "You're protecting him from your mother being even more biased in class than she already is." She smirked a moment. "Very Hufflepuff, really." Susan nodded in agreement.

"I think it's clever," Padma said with a small smile. "Ravenclaw."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - The bulk of guesses on Pansy's mystery friend were exactly right; if anyone wants to find me a good face-cast of a ruggedly handsome man with long red hair and a few scars from dragon incidents, I wouldn't say no._**

 ** _This is tagged as a romance and if you are generally not fond of stories that feature people pairing off into partnerships, well, this might not be the story for you; people finding love is pretty much the definition of a romance story._**


	60. Chapter 60 (Rebuilding Day: 1 of 6)

Hermione tromped out, thick jumper on to ward away the chill, and looked at the booth the boys had made. It was a good thing none of them planned to go into construction or cabinet building. The wooden structure looked like it might fall over at any moment; it was little more than a rectangular frame with a sign on the top advertising "gingers" and an angled board to put the merchandise on. Some of the merchandise. There was no way they could fit even a fifth of the cookies Pansy had insisted they make on that small shelf.

"Gingers?" Hermione looked at Draco with a sigh.

"Theo did it," he said, mustering up an expression that pretended to be guilt-ridden. "We ran out of room for all of 'gingersnaps'"

"Uh-huh," Hermione said. Draco wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair as Pansy stomped out from the castle, trays of cookies floating behind her. She stopped when she saw the booth and began to snicker.

"I hope no one tries to buy Andy," Pansy said. "And this is not big enough." She walked around the booth and looked behind the tiny counter, searching for more shelf space. "Was this really all you idiots could manage?" She and Hermione exchanged a look and Pansy sighed. When Hannah and Susan arrived they looked similarly askance and within moments they had used transfiguration to add a table for the extra biscuits and a series of warming spells to make the whole area toasty instead of cold. The addition of the heat made them all relax and Pansy shook her hair as she began setting out packages. "Well, welcome to hell, everyone Draco, no matter what, you mustn't let my mother talk your parents into any kind of anything."

Draco snorted, his arms still around Hermione, and Pansy lowered her chin and gave him a stubborn look. "I mean it," she said. "Nothing."

"Andy?" Hermione asked, thinking back to Pansy's earlier comment. "Why would anyone buy Andy?"

"I told him he could hang out with us," Pansy said. "The Gryffindor first and second years are apparently supposed to run a booth about making bird houses and he's afraid of birds."

"Really?" Hannah asked. "Why?"

"I didn't press," Pansy said.

"First time for everything," Susan said.

Pansy became very busy arranging biscuit packages and the silence dragged out until Pansy said, "So, how's the new boyfriend, Susan? That's two? three? four? so far this year, isn't it?"

"We aren't all doomed to spinsterhood because everyone hates us," Susan said. "Some of us are popular."

Theo loped up behind the group and said, "Padma's going to be late. She and Neville are having some discussion about plants and I left them arguing about how many kinds of curry a reasonable person should have on hand."

"So you had breakfast with Neville," Pansy said.

"And Padma," Theo countered. "How do you like our booth?"

They all turned to look at the lopsided, ridiculous structure. "We're going for the pity sales, I guess," Pansy said. "I suppose that's an approach." She waved over the second year walking toward them as if he weren't sure he were welcome. "We'll use the cute waif as part of the decor. It'll be great. His hair colour even makes him thematic."

"When do people arrive," Hermione asked. She'd been silent up until now, leaning against Draco and listening to the stabbing banter.

"Parents' Day," Susan said. "Such a brilliant idea for a school filled with war orphans. It's as if they sat down and said, 'What's the cruelest thing we could do?'"

"They don't think," Theo said. "Or don't care." The pair of them looked at one another and Susan nodded, a short, jerky motion that spoke of far too much history. "Those of us without… visitors… can just stay here, right?"

"Right," Hermione said. "It'll be fine."

Draco made an uncomfortable sound and Hermione muttered, "I know you have to go and be a good son."

"It's not that," he said. "I promised Andy I'd go watch him fly in the games."

Hermione looked at the boy who scuffed his toe in the grass and said, "I understand if you can't. My dad's a muggle and my mum's… she's gone, and he couldn't even see the castle but -"

"No," Hermione cut him off. "Draco'll go and see you."

"I'll take care of her while you're gone," Theo said. "Don't worry."

"It'll be fine," Hermione said. "We'll sell the biscuits. It'll be fine."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Excuse me while I'm maudlin for a moment. I think it is possible you are the best, nicest, most amazing group of readers on FF. The messages I get telling me how much you look forward to this every day ward away the chill better than any jumper and I appreciate them, and you, so much. Thank you._**


	61. Chapter 61 (Rebuilding Day: 2 of 6)

It was not, of course, fine.

They sold biscuits, enjoyed the increasingly warm fall day, and bantered with one another. Molly and Arthur Weasley walked by and Arthur began to slow down to say hello but Molly made a sound and he hurried to catch up with her, sending an apologetic look toward Hermione and the rest. Susan rolled her eyes at the interaction and Hannah drummed her fingers on the ledge of their booth with obvious disapproval.

Theo began drilling Andy in second and third year spells and found the boy was a bit of a prodigy at transfiguration and wholly hopeless at everything else. "How can you do fifth year transfiguration but struggle to float that damn feather!" he was exclaiming, pretending to pull his hair out in exasperation when a couple walked by.

"I can't believe they let the Death Eaters' children back," the woman sniffed as she stared at Draco's unmistakable pale hair.

"They should have all gone to Azkaban," her husband agreed. He had the portentous tone of a man who was used to having his pronouncements agreed with by all and sundry. Hermione imagined, hearing him, that he and his spouse sat at dinner parties with friends and all agreed with one another over wine that they paid too much for because they didn't want to be thought of as the kind of people who purchased cheap bottles.

She, herself, preferred hot chocolate.

Theo lowered his arm and took a step backward. Draco and Pansy froze. Hannah stepped in front of Draco, Padma - who had indeed arrived late, Neville in tow - stepped in front of Pansy, and Susan move to block the passing adults' view of Theodore. Neville took a step forward but Hermione put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him before she walked around the tiny booth and held her hand out to the woman. "Nice to meet you," she said. "I'm Hermione Granger."

The woman got the excited look of a child about to reach the front of a candy line. "Harry Potter's friend," she almost squealed.

"So," Hermione said, "What did you do during the War? Work for the Order? Fight behind the scenes against Voldemort?"

The pair flinched at her use of the name and for a moment neither said anything. At last the man said, his voice stiff, "We tried to mind our own business."

Hermione nodded. "Understandable," she said. "It was a scary time."

The couple relaxed. This was a mistake.

"I didn't have that option, of course," she said. "Some of us were pulled into fighting whether we wanted to or not.'

"You were so brave," the woman gushed.

"So was Draco." There was utter silence after Hermione spoke. "So was Draco and so was Theodore. They didn't have a choice. They were on the opposite side but they were just as scared as I was, trying just as hard to cope with problems that should never have been theirs. You hid in your house and tried to avoid attention?" She took a step closer to the man so she was well inside his personal space bubble and he visibly struggled to keep from stepping backward. "Draco had Voldemort in his house. He did what he felt he had to do to protect his family and like a lot of people he found out the rubbish he'd believed at eleven and twelve and thirteen was just that - rubbish. But most people don't have to figure out they've been a shite with their parents' lives on the line and Voldemort sitting in their dining room with a giant snake and laughing. "

The contemptuous look she gave the pair at the way they flinched at the monster's name seemed to brace the woman's spine because she began to fight back, her words dripping poisoned honey.

"Yes, you're very sweet to defend your little boyfriend, my dear," she began. "I don't think he Imperiused you, of course, despite the _Prophet_ , but a pretty boy with a sad story can work as well as any curse. And enjoy your little romance, but he's still a Death Eater. Still a blood purist. I'm sure he hasn't so much as introduced you to his parents, and he never will because you're nothing but a Muggle-born to them, or him."

Hermione took a deep breath and began to shake a little. Theo took a step forward, seeing the signs of an imminent panic attack, and Pansy squatted down and hissed, "Where's her bag," as she began fumbling to find a vial of Draught of Peace.

"You know I'm right," the woman said. "The precious, precious family your little beau committed his crimes to save won't ever so much as acknowledge your existence."

"Hermione."

Hermione turned, feeling as though the whole world had narrowed into a tunnel surrounded by white fog, and saw a tiny, blonde, impeccably dressed woman smiling at her.

"How very lovely to see you," Narcissa Malfoy said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another day, another chapter for the most wonderful fanfic readers anywhere._**


	62. Chapter 62 (Rebuilding Day: 3 of 6)

"Mum," Draco said, stepping out from behind his Hufflepuff shelter and coming to her side.

"Draco." She reached over and tucked a stray lock of his white-blond hair back with an almost unconscious fondness. "I'm sorry I was late. I was stopped by four little girls at the pitch who explained the importance of the games in great detail. I may have promised to go and cheer for them later." She turned back to Hermione. "You're looking well."

Hermione smiled as blandly as she could. " As are you, Mrs. Malfoy. But, then, you always do."

"Sweet girl," Narcissa said. "So polite, but I do believe I've asked you to call me Narcissa."

"Of course," Hermione said. "Narcissa."

The woman turned to the couple who hadn't said a word during this interchange though they had pinched their mouths shut in the natural disdain of the bourgeoisie for the aristocrat. Hermione smiled at them. "I don't believe we've met," Narcissa said. "I'm Narcissa Malfoy."

"We know who you are," the man said.

"We know all about you," his wife said.

"Oh, I doubt that," Hermione said. "Did you never stop to ask yourself why Harry Potter, my best friend and the man who made sure you weren't ground under Voldemort's heel, testified for the Malfoys? I mean, it's certainly not as if he and Draco were friends."

Draco couldn't hold back a snort at that, earning him a disapproving look from his mother. Hermione noticed the woman didn't react to Voldemort's name with so much as a flutter of an eyelash. Impressive, really, for a woman who'd seen him in the intimacy of her home for many, many long months. Hermione doubted Voldemort had been a pleasant house guest. She knew Draco kept a mask in place for most people, but he'd let her see his true reaction to the man's name. It spoke of horrors beyond telling.

"Everyone knows Potter's too nice for his own good," the man sputtered.

"Harry?" Hermione let out a laugh. "I know him better than almost anyone and I can assure you he's got his moments. No," she wanted to lick her lips as she prepared to eviscerate the man. "Harry testified for the Malfoys because if Narcissa Malfoy hadn't lied on his behalf, lied to a man whose name you can't even bear to hear, the world would be burning around you. This woman, this woman you have the nerve to stand in judgement of, saved you."

She took a deep breath and turned to the deceptively fragile woman at her side. "Would you like to buy a gingersnap, Narcissa. The proceeds go to build a memorial to students who fell at Hogwarts during the Second Wizarding War."

"I'd love to." Narcissa pulled out a stack of galleons that could have purchased the whole inventory. I'd like four bags please." She glanced back the way she had come to spot Lucius, using his cane more heavily than he had before the Battle of Hogwarts. "Five."

Draco looked at his mother in disbelief. "You don't like gingersnaps," he said.

She patted him on the hand. "I'm sure the little girls who were so eager to tell me how romantic you are, what a wonderful Housemate, and how they look up to you, all as as they backed me into agreeing to watch them fly later - I quite admired their technique - will appreciate them. And your father has always liked gingersnaps."

"We'd like to get some too," the man still standing there, watching this, said, reaching into his pocket.

"Your money is no good here."

It was Hannah Abbott who spoke. She leaned on the little shelf of the ramshackle booth and quickly pulled her weight away when the thing threatened to tip over. "We are here to end the wounds of the war."

"You'll take her money," the woman objected, pointing at Narcissa Malfoy.

"I don't think I can make change for this," Susan said, looking rather nervously at the pile of gold coins.

"Just keep it, dear," Narcissa said.

"Death Eater lovers," the woman said, looking from student to student. "I see what this place has become, I see what - "

"Fuck you."

Susan Bones almost knocked the booth over in her haste to get around it. "Get out," she hissed. "Those pricks killed my entire family while you cowered in your house, you bitch."

The woman took a step backward but Susan matched her step for step until the woman was pressed up against her husband. "I lost everything," the girl said, "I fought. And if after all that I can sell cookies with Theodore Nott and see him as a person you can either manage to do the same from the comfort of your undisturbed life or you can get the fuck away from me." She took a deep breath. "My aunt didn't die so you could stand there in judgement of people who suffered in ways you can't understand."

"It's okay, Sue," Theodore said.

"It is not okay," she said, rounding on him. "It is _not_ okay." She began to cry as the couple took their chance to scurry away. "It is never going to be okay again." Theo blinked away something and stepped toward her, not sure what to do, until she flung herself into his arms and he held on and began murmuring things into her hair about how it really was fine and she would be fine and, yes, everything was awful right now but this day would be over soon and they could go to their little Recovery room and play some chess and maybe Hannah would have more crisps to pass out.

Lucius eyed the pair without comment and then said, "Narcissa, we have a problem we are going to have to deal with."

"What?" she asked him.

"Posy Parkinson is here and she's spotted me."

Narcissa's facade, a facade that facing down hatred and sobbing teenagers hadn't cracked, fell away for just a moment as she muttered, "Damn that woman."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, lovely and wonderful people!_**

 ** _Since this fic has picked up a sudden spurt of new readers (*waves*) I'll go through the boring housekeeping stuff. This gets updated every day, usually between 6AM and 9AM New York City time. Yes, the chapters are always this short. Yes, it is dramione, no matter how many times Ginny and Draco go flying, and, yes, there will be a happy ending. I don't know how long it will be though 150 - 175 chapters seems like a reasonable estimate based on how long it's taken to get this far. Tumblr is the best way to ask me questions because I can answer them from the mobile app and I love your reviews like coffee and chocolate._**

 ** _And thank you for reading :)_**


	63. Chapter 63 (Rebuilding Day: 4 of 6)

The warning that Posy Parkinson was approaching made Pansy hiss, "Save yourselves," and take off at a near run. Draco looked desperately from one person to another until Hermione said, "Maybe now would be a good time to go watch Andy on his broom?" and, with no further encouragement needed, Draco disappeared, the ginger-haired second-year dragged behind him.

"I don't get it," they heard him say as Draco strode off. "Why is she so bad?"

"She wants me to marry Pansy," Draco said.

"But everyone knows you're in love with - " and then they were out of earshot.

Hermione ducked back behind the biscuit booth with Hannah while Susan and Theo struggled to regain their composure after Susan's meltdown. Susan sniffled and wiped at her eyes and tried to hide her face from the Malfoys, both of whom pretended not to see her discomfiture. "Why don't you two go for a walk," Padma suggested to Theo and Susan. "We don't really need this many people to mind one booth."

"Go," Hannah agreed, waving her hands at them. Neville hurried after the pair muttering something about needing to ask Susan a question. Padma, Hannah, and Hermione were left and Hannah said, very quietly, "I think we're about to have front row seats for the Pureblood Dating Game." She opened a pack of biscuits and held them out to Hermione, who took one, to Padma, who didn't, and then helped herself. "These are so good," she said around mouthful of baked goods. "Whatever else she may be, Pansy's a good cook."

"Shh," Padma murmured. "We can't eavesdrop if you're talking."

The three girls watched a terrifyingly vivacious woman in very high heels who came mincing up to the Malfoys. She'd loaded up her wrists with clunky bangles, had at least half a dozen long gold necklaces hanging down over her fitted top, and had a giant pair of sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head. "Posy," Narcissa Malfoy said, "What a surprise to see you here."

"WouId I miss the chance to see my baby at school?" Posy Parkinson asked without looking around to see if Pansy were anywhere near. "They all grow up so quickly, don't they, and she's such a sweet girl."

"Draco has always spoken well of her," Lucius said, leaning just a little more on his cane. "I understand she and Millicent Bulstrode intend to go into business together?"

Posy waved her hand, long nails glittering in the fall sun. "Oh, such a silly idea. I'm sure she'll get it out of her head and move on to more adult responsibilities once school is over."

"Really? I think it's rather a good plan," Narcissa said. "I've been meaning to suggest she send over a business proposal. I'm quite interested in supporting young women."

"Maybe she could bring it over in person," Posy suggested in what she probably thought was a coy manner but which had Padma snickering behind her hand. Hannah kicked her in the ankle to get her to stop. "That way you could see for yourself what a charming young lady she is. I'm sure she and Draco - "

"Oh, Draco has no time to start a small business," Lucius interrupted her. "And too many cooks do something bad to the broth, or so I've been told. No, once he graduates he'll have to take on learning to manage the Malfoy estate."

"Maybe Pansy - "

"And really, I like to look over business proposals in private first," Lucius continued. "You're the same way, aren't you love?" Narcissa nodded. "It gives me time to formulate questions, get a list of suggestions prepared. It's not really a tea party kind of thing, though we're always happy to see your sweet daughter." He turned to Narcissa and said, as though taken by an idea, "Perhaps over the Easter holidays we could have a small ball for the seventh and eighth year students."

"What a lovely idea," Narcissa agreed. "Draco and his girlfriend could open the dancing." She looked up at Hermione, who was trying to will herself into invisibility. "Would you be open to that idea, my dear?"

Posy Parkinson turned as if she saw the three girls at the booth for the first time. "Hermione Granger?" she said in disbelief. "I read about that in the _Prophet._ Not that I believed it, of course; Draco knows what's due to his heritage and he wouldn't… surely you aren't condoning _that_? _"_

 _. . . . . . . . . ._

 ** _A/N - Good morning to the loveliest readers in all of fandom!_**


	64. Chapter 64 (Rebuilding Day: 5 of 6)

When Posy Parkinson asked the Malfoys whether or not they were condoning Draco's relationship with Hermione there was an awful silence. Hannah took a deep breath, preparing to unleash a torrent of abuse on the florid woman in front of her, but Lucius Malfoy spoke before she got started.

"We don't find it necessary to find significant others for our child," he said. "The boy is perfectly capable of arranging his own personal life." He smiled then turned to Narcissa. "I do believe you had promised to introduce me to this year's newest members of our esteemed Slytherin House," he said. "I'm sure they've grown quite impatient waiting for us."

"Posy," Narcissa said. "It was lovely as always to see you." The couple turned and walked away, arm in arm and Posy was left alone, one hand on her hip, unwanted. She gave a furious glare to the girls behind the biscuit booth and stalked off in impotent fury.

"Wow," Padma said after the woman had left. "I feel like I understand Pansy in a way I never had before."

"Right?" said Hannah, equally gobsmacked.

They all stood, unsure what to say, looking from one to the other, until they heard a loud voice say, "Gingers?" in a tone of disbelief. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" Hermione sighed and Padma gave her a worried look as Ron Weasley walked up, Harry and Ginny trailing behind him. Ginny's hair was mussed and her lips were swollen and even Harry's hair looked more disheveled than usual and it didn't take a N.E.W.T. in Ancient Runes to realize what they'd been up to.

"Ooo," said Ginny. "These are so good. I got some of the broken ones fresh from the oven." She reached into a pocked and dug around for some change.

"It's on us," Hannah said. "You're pretty much an honorary eighth year anyway."

"Plus Narcissa Malfoy gave us enough to buy out the lot then only took five bags," said Padma.

"Trying to buy her way back to respectability," Ron said, though he didn't turn down the free bag of biscuits Hannah held out to him. "These are good," he said around a mouthful of gingersnap. "Who did you say made them?"

"Pansy," Hermione said as sweetly as she could.

Ron almost spit the cookie out onto the ground. "Parkinson?" he said in disbelief.

"That would be the one," said Padma. "Do you want us to leave to give you privacy while you apologize?"

Ron gave her a confused look. "While I do what?" he asked.

"Apologize," Hannah said, repeating Padma. "For slandering your friend in the paper?" She smiled with a sweet, disingenuous smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on Narcissa Malfoy. "I'm sure you want to since it was such a dreadful, unkind thing to do." They could all hear the sounds of the little first years shrieking in delight as they competed in the flying competition on the pitch as they waited for Ron to respond to Padma and Hannah.

"Sorry," he muttered at last.

Harry gave him a disgusted look. "'Sorry'," he mimicked. "You were a shite, Ron. I thought that's why you wanted to come up today for this, to tell her what a shite you were and how sorry you were."

"You wanted to come up to snog your girlfriend," Ron said with a sullen turn to his lips.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Forgive me if I'm a little more interested in seeing Ginny than in listening to another round of you pouting." He walked over to Hermione and kissed her on the cheek. "Missed you," he said. "I love your owls. You and Ginny are keeping me sane during this training year."

"Every time I read one of your letters I'm so grateful I turned Kingsley down," Hermione said.

"Yeah, well, Death Eater sympathizers aren't welcome," Ron said.

Everyone turned to stare at him and Ginny said, her voice low and dangerous, "You aren't suggesting anyone friends with Malfoy is - "

"I am," Ron said, his chin thrust out. "Malfoy almost killed me, in case you forgot."

"You're more upset about that than you ever were about how Tom Riddle almost killed _me_ ," Ginny said, sounding more and more upset. "Voldemort was threatening his parents. He was bloody well trapped _and_ you were fine in the end; we all did awful things when Voldemort pulled the strings, including me and including you, Mr I-can't-take-this-horcrux-hunt-anymore."

"Ginny - " Ron began but she just talked over him.

"Draco is my mate too, now, so if you want to cut off everyone who… you're going to have to cut me off too." She glared at her brother and then turned and began walking back toward the pitch as quickly as she could.

Harry dropped one more kiss on Hermione's cheek and said, "I'll see you later. Love you."

"Love you, too," she said and shoved him off in the direction Ginny was walking.

Ron gave her an inscrutable look and took off after the pair without another word.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another happy day to you all, the nicest readers in fandom. (If you're waiting with impatience for the next draco/hermione only scene, it will be chapters 66 & 67 & 68.)_**


	65. Chapter 65 (Rebuilding Day: 6 of 6)

Draco returned to the biscuit booth after a lunch spent with his parents. If he seemed a little loud, a little too present, well, they had all, perhaps, gotten to used to the subdued version of Draco Malfoy and the strutting peacock who was waving a broom over his head in apparent outrage was more like the boy they'd known for years.

"This broom," he said, "can you believe this?"

Hermione looked at the broom. "What's wrong with it?" she asked.

"It looks like a perfectly normal broom to me," Padma said. "Unstable, uncomfortable, undesirable."

Hermione smiled at her in sudden, unexpected sympathy with the other girl's feelings on brooms and, she suspected, flying.

Draco huffed. "This broom is inadequate," he said.

"I'm having these very strange flashbacks to you and Harry having weird little 'who has the better broom' wars when you were eleven and twelve," said Hermione, trying not to laugh. "If I didn't know better, I'd say two boys arguing over who has the better phallic symbol might be - "

"Ha. Ha. Ha," said Draco. "I was _not_ into Potter, or his broom-in-quotes. I just wanted his actual, not-a-symbol better broom." He shook the brook in his hand in Hermione's face. "No child should have to ride a broom like this. Look at it!"

Hermione pushed the broom away and rolled her eyes. "We don't all pour over _Racing Brooms Quarterly_ in our dorm rooms, Draco. It looks just like all the other school brooms to me."

"Exactly," he said in triumph. Hermione and Padma glanced at one another. "This is _Andy's_ broom," he said.

"Do you know what he's on about?" Hermione asked Hannah in a stage whisper. The other girl shook her head.

" _Andy_ ," Draco said again in a tone that suggested he thought they were all idiots. " _Our_ Andy."

"I know who Andy is," Hermione said. "And he's got a broom. That's good, right?"

"Not when it's this broom!" Draco shook it again. "This is an outdated model. It doesn't have current cushioning charms, will barely reach fifty miles per hour, doesn't turn for shite. It's a _terrible_ broom. I put him on mine - "

"Wait." Hermione held her hand up. "You put a twelve-year-old boy on that death machine you call a broom?"

"He was fine, Hermione," Draco made an exasperated sound that conveyed his disdain for anyone who didn't appreciate proper flying tools. "Don't be such a girl."

"I dare you to say that in front of Ginny," she said.

"Fine," Draco said. "Don't be such an old lady. Whatever. My _point_ is that he was fine. He was more than fine. He could have made the team if he had a decent broom but instead he was stuck with this pathetic pile of junk." He threw the broom down and kicked at it. "It's not fair to the kid. Just because his dad's a Muggle he gets stuck with crap like this."

Hannah turned to hide the smile that was threatening to consume her face and Hermione summoned the broom and set it behind the booth lest Draco end up breaking it in his tantrum. It was intelligent Padma who asked the question neither of the other women wanted to broach. "So do you plan to buy him a better broom or just complain about this one?"

"Already ordered it," Draco said.

His arrogance and bravado covered his concern he had that maybe he had overstepped, and it was possible that after the hideous conversation he'd had over lunch with his mother he'd needed to do something extravagant to make himself feel less like the heel she apparently wanted him to be. He'd gone back to his room after that conversation and broken his own promise to himself, but while he was there he'd seen the broom catalogue and had an idea. After he'd cleaned up he'd sent an order off before he had time to second guess himself. Now, the way Hermione smiled at him when he announced he'd gotten the little Gryffindor boy a new broom made his shoulders ease and he smiled back at her.

"He'll love it," Hermione said. "You'll have even more of a fan."

"'snot why I did it. It's just not right," Draco said, "sticking as good a flyer as that kid is on a crappy broom."

"Well," Hannah said. "I think we're done here. Enough Rebuilding Day for me. The school is supposed to break down the booths so all we have to do it haul the leftovers back and eat them."

"Sounds good," Hermione said. "I wouldn't say no to an afternoon of shoving gingers in my mouth."

Draco raised his eyebrows.

"Hey," she said. "You three painted the booth, not me."

"Speaking of our three boys, where are Theo and Neville?" Padma asked.

"They've been gone all day," Hermione said. "Since they and Susan took off to avoid Pansy's mother."

"Huh," was all Draco said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm so ahead in writing it's a two chapter day!_**


	66. Chapter 66

Draco pulled Hermione's hair back out of the way and brushed his nose along the line of her neck before beginning to kiss her skin. "I'm so glad we survived Rebuilding Day," she murmured, tipping her head to the side to give him easier access to her skin.

"Mmm," he said in agreement. He was not at all interested in talking about Rebuilding Day. It hadn't been as awful as he'd feared but he wouldn't call it a good time either.

"Your mother made noises about an Easter Ball to Pansy's mother," Hermione said as Draco began unbuttoning her jumper without taking his mouth away from her neck. "She made noises I would be invited."

That made Draco pull back. "Really?" he asked. "When?"

What she'd said to him, in private, was that while she could more easily understand his attraction to 'that Granger girl' now, and it was probably beneficial to have such a staunch defender at school, he really should be careful not to lead her to expect more than he planned to deliver. That, Narcissa had said, would not be a kind way to repay her for the way she champions you to all and sundry. Be sure the ending is gentle. "We already have a problem with that Mrs. Parkinson having ideas above her station for her daughter," Narcissa had said. "When the time comes you'll want to marry someone appropriate _and_ someone who can help rehabilitate you in the eyes of our world. Pansy, while a lovely girl, can't help you with the latter and that Granger girl can't help you with the former. Her birth, Draco. Her family. No."

"Really," Hermione said now. "She was sort of heading Pansy's mother off on her fervent quest to get you two married but - "

"Ugh," Draco said. "Pansy as a wife would be a nightmare; she just goes and goes and never shuts up. I mean, she's great but not to live with every day in the same house, same room. Ugh. She needs a bloody dragon tamer to keep up with her."

Hermione laughed as she pulled her arms out of her jumper and set it to the side. "So I shouldn't assume your mother's sudden public acceptance means anything?'

"I wouldn't," Draco said as cautiously as he could. "She talks in code, you know. She's been a politician's daughter and then a politician's wife."

Hermione made an mmm-ing noise and began unbuttoning his shirt. "I didn't think it meant what it sounded like," she admitted. "It seemed awfully… accepting."

Draco closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of her hands against his skin as she ran her palms over his cheat. "You are so… I mean, you're very thin, and - " she traced her fingers over the scar left from his experience with Potter's sectrumsempra.

"I know," he said. "All marred up."

"That wasn't what I was going to say," she said with a roll of her eyes. "You used to strut around like you owned the whole school. You're still just as," she bit her lip and eyed his torso, "nice."

"I wasn't nice at all," he objected but he was beginning to smirk.

"Oh, you were very nice," she said. "For certain, very specific meanings of the word 'nice'." She began to tug his shirt down over his shoulders but it got caught because she hadn't undone the cuffs and she laughed at herself and began to fuss with those buttons. Draco tensed but it was too late, there was no way he could reasonably stop her now, and she got them undone, pulled the shirt off, and ran her hands over his upper arms with blatant appreciation. "Seekers are so slender," she said. "Who'd know you had arms like this under that shirt?"

He bit his lip and felt his smirk returning. He could keep her distracted. "I guess you do," he said, and put his hands on her face and tipped her mouth to his where he set himself to distracting her with enthusiasm. It worked, too, and she returned the kissed with increasing urgency, wrapping her arms around him and pressing herself against him. "You have too many clothes on," he gasped at last, desperate to feel her skin. "How come I'm shirtless and you're still fully clothed.

"Is the door locked?" she asked as she began to slip out of her shirt and then her brassiere.

"Locked, sound muffled, everything," he promised. "Besides, we're in an abandoned classroom down a dusty corridor that no one goes in. We're fine."

He was just about to run his hands over the skin she'd so obligingly bared when she saw his Mark and her eyes narrowed in concern. "Draco," she said, touching one finger to the fresh red lines crossing it. "What happened?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy Friday! This fic reached 6,000 reviews while I slept to which I can only say, "wow" and "thank you."_**


	67. Chapter 67

Draco pulled his arm away from Hermione's worried eyes and tried to re-interest her in kissing. "It's nothing," he murmured, brushing his lips against the line of her jaw. "Don't worry about it." He pressed his mouth to hers. "Where were we?"

It didn't work. She sat back and took his arm in both hands and turned it so she could see the Dark Mark. As soon as Voldemort had died it had started to fade and what had once been a shocking black that stood out against his fair skin was now dull and grey. It somehow made the thing look more like death and decay than than even the black had. It was criss-crossed with a handful of faint scars that had likewise faded and four fresh cuts. Hermione held a finger above one of the red lines and, after a long pause, set it down against his skin. "What happened," she said and then answered her own question. "You did this," she said.

He flinched away from the horror in her tone.

"Does Theo know?" she asked.

He shrugged and half turned away from her, letting the rotation of his body pull his arm out of her grasp. She let it go too easily. "I haven't exactly held the knife out and had a conversation about it," he said. "But then, we've never talked about his drinking either."

"Why?" she said. ""Draco, why would you do this to yourself?" She raised her voice. "We've all been hurt enough. You've been hurt enough. Why hurt yourself? Why?"

"It helps, okay?" Draco actually shouted the words and Hermione took a step back. "It's fucked up and I know that and it shouldn't help but it does." He sank down into a nearby chair and said more quietly, "Sometimes I can't handle it. I feel like everyone hates me, like I can't do anything right, like I never did anything right and never will, like I don't deserve to take up space even. And then I'm angry. I hate myself and I'm angry at everyone else for not noticing that I'm fucking drowning and it's all coming at me at once and it's like I'm on overload and this helps." He took a deep breath and thought about the knife sitting in his drawer. "It helps," he said again. "I'm not… I'm careful. I'm not trying to kill myself or anything stupid like that." He buried his face into his hands. "I just need it sometimes. It makes everything go away. Makes everything simple. And, yeah, I look at the marks afterward and I feel like I'm pathetic. Who does this? Who uses a knife on himself? It's messed up and wrong and I do… but it helps. I wish it didn't and I'm trying not to do it, but it helps."

"I don't understand," Hermione said, reaching for his hand. "Help me understand."

"You do, though," he said. "You have panic attacks Theo's trying to drink himself to death. I think Ginny's trying to have a flying accident she can't come back from. It's all - "

"- the same," Hermione said. She squeezed his fingers and, almost desperately, he squeezed back.

"You hate me," he said.

"Draco." She was shocked. "I don't. I couldn't." She took a deep breath. "Would it help if you came to me instead?"

He shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "I don't want to be a bother. It's not a big deal."

She turned his hand in hers and drew circles on his palm with her fingers. "It's a big deal to me," she said softly. "If it would help you not feel like no one cares to come to me, that's… I would like to be able to do that for you the way you help me with the panic attacks."

"I don't want to be… I'm not your project," Draco said. "I'm not a house elf."

"Can't I care about you?" she asked. "Not as a project? As you? The way you care about me?"

"I don't think you care about me the same way I care about you," he said, looking away.

"I think you're wrong," she said.

"This makes me feel worthless," Draco said. "Like I can't… like there's something wrong with me." He looked back at her, fear and nerves behind his eyes.

"War is wrong with all of us," Hermione said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - NOW it's Friday. Happy Friday!_**


	68. Chapter 68

Draco and Hermione stood in the locked and muffled classroom, shirts off, until Hermione, with a shiver, said, "I'm cold."

Wordlessly, Draco handed her back her brassiere and her shirt and began to pull his own oxford back on as she redressed. He'd gotten a smudge of dirt on the elbow, he noticed. He didn't look at Hermione as he rebuttoned the cuffs with deliberate care and smoothed the shirt back down over his Mark and the cuts across it.

"Draco." Hermione's voice sounded sad and he could almost see the sound bouncing off the windows only to fall to the floor. "You still… this doesn't change anything, right?"

"Doesn't it?" he said, still not looking at her. "Why would you want to… I'm so… doesn't it change things?"

She wrapped her arms around him and nestled her head against his chest. "I hope not," she said, "though I'd like it if you came and found me when you felt like… maybe company would help."

"I don't know if I can do that," he admitted.

"Can you not keep it a secret from me," she asked.

"It's just so - "

"You see every time I down a Draught of Peace," she said, interrupting him. "Does it make you like me less?"

"No," he whispered into her hair. "Nothing could."

"Me either," she said.

He tightened his grip on her at that and said, "I'll try."

They stood for a long time until Hermione said, "Do you think we should talk to Theodore about his drinking?"

Draco sighed and leaned against her. He knew they should but if there ever were a conversation to dread it would be that one. "I suppose," he said. "I nominate you."

"Why me?" she said. She pushed him until he sat on one of the old wooden tables in the classroom. These trousers will have to go in the laundry too, he thought, as she pulled herself up to sit next to him and swung one leg so it was across his. She lay a hand with an assumed casualness that didn't fool him over the part of his arm where the Mark was and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep tears from coming out. "You've known him longer. I think it should be you."

"You're the Gryffindor," Draco countered. "You're one of the brave ones."

"I'm not, lately," Hermione said, her eyes moving as if against her will to the bag stocked with anti-anxiety potions.

Draco snorted. After watching telling off those self-righteous Hogwarts parents who objected to the presence of kids who'd committed the horrible sin of having Death Eater parents he found her dismissal of her own bravery almost laughable. "More than I am," he said.

"You came back," Hermione said. "I think that was pretty brave."

"I was trying to get away from my mother," Draco muttered.

Hermione bit her lip before she said, "I imagine she can be pretty overwhelming."

He huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, you could say that."

Hermione poked at Draco until he looked at her. "Any ideas where you want to live after graduation?" she asked. He didn't answer but she smiled at the way his eyes widened and she reached over and cupped the side of his face. "I mean, we can't live with your parents. That's weird, even if that place is big enough to house all of Hogwarts - "

"Plus you were tortured there."

"It does make me have less than warm feelings about your home," Hermione agreed. "I don't have anywhere to go, really. We could let a flat in London, I guess. Or… will your parents cut you off if you…" she stopped talking.

Draco leaned into her hand and said, "So many accounts are already in my name that even if they did, I'd be fine. But they won't. I'm the only heir and that means something to them. And I'm family. And… I know they're… but they aren't the kind of parents who would suddenly burn me from the tapestry because they don't like my choice of - ." He stopped abruptly and then said, "No. They would never cut me off. But I might have to listen to some lectures."

"I'm pretty poor," she said. "All my parents' money was used to move them and now - "

"Doesn't matter," Draco said. "I really only want you for your pretty face."

"And my bushy hair."

"Yeah." He kissed the hand still cupping his face. "We can decamp at Theo's until we have a plan, I guess. Assuming you still want to be with me after graduation. I even have a room at Nott Manor, I spent so much time there as a kid."

"Now all we have to do is tell him to stop drinking," Hermione said.

"I nominate you," Draco said. "Gryffindor."

"Ugh. I think that's unfair," Hermione muttered. "House prejudice."

Draco laughed and helped her down. "Maybe not tonight," he said.

"But soon."

"Yeah."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, lovely people. Did you know you are wonderful and fabulous? The nicest readers and reviewers on the internet. No lie._**


	69. Chapter 69 (The Cat Story)

"Tell me about the cat." Pansy took another drink from Theo's flask and handed it to Neville, who wiped it off before taking a hefty swallow. Hermione looked confused so Pansy said, in the tone of a someone talking to a not very bright child, "Millie's cat. You said once when you get really drunk to ask you about her cat. You're drunk. I want to know about you and her cat."

"Oh." Hermione dragged the word out and then laughed and lay back blankets they'd spread on the stone floor of the classroom where they were all avoiding work and responsibilities now that Rebuilding Day was safely past, the Quidditch teams were practicing in earnest, and lectures on N.E.W.T.s had become so commonplace they had all begun to ignore them. She stared up at the wooden beams of the ceiling and considered where to begin. "Remember the year the Chamber got opened and the basilisk happened?"

"Oddly enough, yes," Ginny said from her own place on the floor. Draco laughed and she reached over and hit him on the arm. He rubbed at the spot but didn't say anything.

"We - me, Harry and Ron - thought the Heir of Slytherin had to be Draco."

"Why?" Draco asked her, flabbergasted they'd have thought that.

"You spouted off about blood purity all the time," she said, moving so her head was cushioned on his thigh, "and I think you might have mentioned you hoped I would be next."

Draco mumbled something like, "Sorry about that."

"You were twelve and a prat," Hermione said. "I'm over it. But we were so sure it had to be you and we - well, I - got the clever idea that the best way to prove this theory was to use Polyjuice to disguise ourselves as your friends and get you to fess up."

The look Theo gave her expressed his opinion of that plan. Neville was more interested in the practicalities. "How did you get the Polyjuice?" he asked.

"Brewed it," she said, even the passing of years not dimming quite how smug she felt at that particular success. "Stole the ingredients from Snape's stores and brewed it up in the toilet."

"Damn," said Pansy, impressed.

"Anyway," Hermione went one, "you know you have to add something like a hair from the person you mean to impersonate and we got hairs from Crabbe and Goyle and one from Millie's robes and - "

Pansy began to laugh. "Oh, you didn't," she said with absolute delight.

"I had a _tail_ ," Hermione said, trying not to laugh. "It twitched when I was angry. I couldn't control it. I had _ears,_ Pansy. Big, furry ears."

"Please tell me you purred," Theo nearly begged. "Please, oh please."

"I was never actually happy enough while recovering from that to purr so I'm not sure," Hermione said.

Ginny began to laugh. "I wish I had known that," she said. "When everyone was scolding me and telling me what an idiot I was for falling for that diary I wish I'd known you three had been nearly as stupid."

"People called you an idiot," Draco asked her. He was petting Hermione's hair as if she were a cat and she began to pretend to purr, eliciting snickers from Theodore, but Draco sounded outraged on Ginny's behalf.

"Yeah, well," she said, "'I told you never to trust anything if you couldn't see where it kept it's brain' and 'What were you thinking' and stuff like that. And then it was just all gone and we were fussing over Harry." She reached over for the flask that Neville still had and he passed it to her. "As usual."

"I thought you two were a thing," Pansy said.

"We are," Ginny said. "But we wouldn't be if he actually liked all that fussing. He hates it, wants to do his thing in peace and be left alone." She took a drink then began coughing. "Fuck, Theo, what's in this? Liquid fucking fire?"

"We do call it fire whiskey for a reason," Theo said.

"He just wants Neville to get wasted enough to go downstairs with him," Pansy said.

Neville turned bright red and began coughing himself. "Like girls," seemed to come out in embarrassed pauses in his coughing fit.

"How do you know?" Pansy demanded. "Have you experimented?" She leaned back on her hands. "Until you've tried both you can't make an informed decision."

"I do not need your help, Pansy," Theo muttered, looking anywhere but at Neville.

"And you're sure you're straight how," Ginny asked.

"What makes you think I am?" Pansy asked airily. The whole room stared at her until she relented with a snicker and said, "Oh, fine, I am. But Millie and I, well, you know."

"No," Draco said, "Actually I don't know. Maybe you could explain in more detail."

"Oh, Hermione," Pansy said, "I'm so sorry."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N -Maybe it was time for something happy?_**


	70. Chapter 70

The group of eighth years - and Ginny - had commandeered the high end of the Slytherin table and taken to eating lunch together. Headmistress McGonagall had noted the change with the slightest of smiles and otherwise said nothing and the week after Rebuilding Day - touted as a success by the school and the _Prophet_ as it had shown the repaired building off, build a sense of community, and raised enough money to commission a memorial - Neville and Theo stood up from the table and said, "So, library?" at the same time.

Pansy snickered into her soup and both boys ignored her as they made noises about wanting to go over the current Defense material - this month it was a review of creatures - and disappeared out the doors.

"Do they think they're fooling anyone?" Susan demanded.

"Don't hover," Hermione said. "They might get nervous and bolt like rabbits or something."

Hannah didn't say anything, just took another bite of her salad with her eyes down.

"So,"Hermione said to Draco, "How did Andy like the broom?" Draco, who had been poking at the day's lunch offering with almost no enthusiasm, perked up and delivered a detailed monologue on how thrilled the boy had been and how he'd taken him out twice now to practice with him and the kid was good, really good, and he thought by the end of the year the kid would be a shoo-in for the Gryffindor team the following year. "There's some girl, too," he said, "keeps showing up. Won't talk to me, just stares at both of us from inside a red and gold scarf so big it looks like she's nothing but wool."

Ginny touched his arm. "That's probably Sarida. Do you want me to ask her to leave you alone?"

"No," Draco said. "But she should bring her broom next time."

"Maybe we can coordinate," Ginny said. "I'll come too. She might feel easier that way." She gave Draco a wide smirk. "I mean, it's the least I can do since you're training up kids to compete against your own House."

Draco gave her a mock scowl. "I'll bring Sarah and Trista and the whole lot of Slytherin first years too," he said. "Get them ready to make your lions work for it."

"They'll have to use school brooms," Ginny said, waving her hand. "No one can learn anything on those."

Draco grouched that she was probably right and Hermione laughed at him. "You're so Quidditch mad," she said. "What if Sarah's a sensible witch, more like Padma or me, and has no interest in flying?"

Draco made a dramatic gesture as if she were stabbing him before returning to frowning at his soup. Green soup. He wasn't a fan.

Susan eyed Padma, who was sagging in her seat and stirring the broccoli soup with her spoon with a slow, tired motion. "Are you okay?" Susan asked. "You've only had like three bites of that and you look like you're about to fall over."

"I'm really tired," Padma admitted. She sounded embarrassed to admit any weakness. "I've been run down ever since - "

"Every since that stupid Rebuilding Day," Pansy said, interrupting her. "Me too. It was insane, making us stay outside all day selling crap. The Ministry should have just funded that memorial."

"I think it was supposed to be about community building," Hannah said softly. "Not really about the galleons."

"If by community building you mean getting everyone in the community sick, sure," Pansy said with a snort. "It was stupid."

Susan was still studying Padma. "Maybe you should go lie down," she said with some concern. "You look really pale. I'll get something better than that green stuff in front of you and bring it up to your room."

Padma flashed a grateful smile at the girl but demurred. "How will you get in?" she asked. "The knocker - "

"You Ravenclaws," Susan said. "I'll explain what I'm doing and it will let me in."

Padma looked like she doubted that would work but stood to leave anyway. "I appreciate it," she said, "but you don't have to do that."

Susan pushed her own broccoli soup away. "Anything would have to be better than this," she said. "I'll ask the elves to put together two portions. Vegetarian, right?"

"Right," Padma said.

They all watched her go. Once she was out of the hall, Pansy said, "Vegetarian, my arse."

"I know," Susan said, "but do you think confronting her would do any good?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - OK, so as you may know I try to write about 10 chapters out at all times. It gives me a cushion in case I get sick or have life things so I can keep the steady publishing pace. And chapter 81 is going to require a shift from T to M. So… sorry about that. You have time to unfollow now if awkward adolescent gropings are a deal breaker for you._**

 ** _Also, good morning lovely people!_**


	71. Chapter 71

Susan convinced the elves to make her two bowls of indian curry and some naan with no problem and headed up to the Ravenclaw Tower, Hermione following in her wake, and using magic to help her balance the tray. Whence got to the infamous riddling door knocker, two boys were about to enter but, seeing the pair, they smirked and stepped aside.

"Ladies first," one said.

"If you can figure out how to get in," the other said, adding what might have been 'death eater lovers' under his breath.

Susan gave the boy a look, but handed the tray to Hermione and rapped with the knocker.

"To which teachers are we ungrateful no matter what we learn," the knocker said.

"We learn kindness from the unkind and tolerance from the intolerant," Susan said, her voice level.

"An excellent answer," the knocker replied and the door swung open to let the girls enter. Before the Ravenclaws behind them could follow the door slammed shut again and they could hear it say, "What allows the deaf to hear and the blind to see?"

Susan smirked a little. "I told Padma it would be easy," she said. They asked a group of girls gathered around a contraption with wires and feathers and several floating elements where Padma's room was and one of them gestured down the hall. "It's the last door on the left," she said, "but I think she's sleeping. She's been sick all term."

"Not sick," another girl said. "Sad."

Padma's door had a near collage of notes attached to it from her Housemates. There were riddles and drawings and recipes for fruit drinks and an invitation to a nightly meditation session in the Astronomy Tower. Hermione thought of the note on her door, a note she'd never taken down in some kind of peculiar defiance, and felt a kind of bittersweet envy. At least Padma's Housemates were trying to look after her. At least the eighth years weren't the only ones. Susan knocked then pushed the door open without waiting for a reply. "I have curry," she said, "and Naan."

Padma was sitting at her desk mixing up what looked to be a greenish paste and spooning it into a cone. "What's that?" Hermione asked, setting the tray down on the bed.

"Mehendi," Padma said.

"Is it food?" Susan asked.

Padma laughed. "More like nail polish," she said. "It's what you use to paint your palms."

"Show me after we eat?" Susan asked. "Because that broccoli thing at lunch was vile and whatever this is the elves magicked up for you and me smells amazing."

Padma's smile faltered a little but between them Susan and Hermione kept up a steady stream of questions about what Padma was doing. She was just doing it casually because she wanted to feel pretty so was only going to do her palms but for weddings and engagements people did their arms too and for her own wedding she'd do her feet - well, someone would do her feet - as well. Question by question they lured her into eating the whole bowl of curry as well as two pieces of the bread. Susan whisked the empty bowls away and they all eyed the cone of paste.

"Can we do it too," Hermione asked, "or is that not okay? After my giant 'they still hate me' misstep with the elves I don't want to - "

"No, no!" Padma said. "Put your hand out. It's fine." She grabbed the cone and began tracing out careful lines on Hermione's palm. "I should do a peacock on you."

"Why?" Hermione asked.

Susan actually giggled. "Because the Malfoys, of course. Don't you remember how Draco used to brag they had white peacocks at his house."

"I don't think the Malfoys like me," Hermione said. "I'm not sure they'd be all that happy with me thinking their peacocks had anything to do with me."

"Draco likes you," Padma said as she continued to draw. "That's all that matters."

"Is that all that would matter to you?" Hermione asked.

Padma bit her lip then admitted, "No, but you're stronger than I am."

"That's not true," Hermione said but Padma shook her head and Susan gave Hermione a 'drop it' look so Hermione didn't push.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, you most wonderful people!_**

 ** _Susan and the door knocker reference the Khalil Gibran quote, "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers." In its second question to the boys the door refers to the Mark Twain quote, "Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."_**

 _ **I truly did not mean Padma's condition to be a mystery and admit I am surprised at the confusion. Yes, she really is a vegetarian and, no, she's not pregnant.**_

 ** _Thank you, again, to the marvelous readingserpent who beta read this for me. Any remaining cultural missteps are mine. And, as always, thanks to shayalonnie who reads everything and keeps me from sobbing in the shower._**


	72. Chapter 72

Hermione made her way out of Padma's room and back through the Ravenclaw common room, admiring the peacock on her hand. The group of girls who'd been working on a mysterious something when she and Susan had come into the tower were still at work and seemed to have made some progress as things were now whirring higher and faster but two of them had stopped working and seemed to be having a heated, if quiet, debate on what sounded like what was the nature of space and time.

Hermione was stopped in her path by the two seventh years in her Arithmancy class. "Hey," one of the boys said, "Granger."

"Yes?" She could feel her urge to cross her arms defensively against the pair but forced herself to let them hang at her side.

"It's about Aritmancy - " one began.

"You're really good at it," the other said. "I can get the right answers but that's never good enough for Vector, she wants - "

"Creativity," the first said. "It's maths! It's not supposed to be creative."

"Apparently it is," Hermione said. "What do you want?" She could see the group of girls stop working and begin to shamelessly eavesdrop on the confrontation.

"To study," one said. "With you. You'd said you were doing a group and we think we could handle that Nott guy - "

"I mean, he was never Marked, not like Malfoy - "

"He wasn't _really_ a Death Eater."

Hermione looked at them and said, "Are you sure you got Sorted properly?" They both squinted at her as though they were confused that she could be so confused. Blue ties. Ravenclaw Tower. They were both in Advanced Arithmancy so clearly they were smart. "I start to understand why Luna had such a hard time," she muttered.

""Looney?" one of the boys said. "The barefoot one?"

Hermione let out a huff. "You two are such arseholes," she said.

"They really are," one of the listening girls said. "Conceited, too."

"Fuck you, Verity," one of the boys said.

"In your dreams," Verity said. "Assuming you have enough creativity to dream, which, personally, I doubt."

"So… study group?" the other boy said as though the byplay between his cohort and the eye rolling Ravenclaw girl hadn't happened.

"To quote your truthful friend," Hermione said, "In your dreams. First of all, you have some nerve deciding you can 'tolerate' Theodore and I now that you've realized you need our help. And about the social skills of a baboon. Less. Don't baboons live in complex social structures?" She turned to the group of girls.

"They do," one said. "They're called troops."

"Maybe you should learn how to navigate complex social structures," Hermione suggested. "Because, and this is just a hint, telling me my boyfriend isn't good enough for you to deign to work with isn't really going to get me to assist you in any way." She smiled. "I hope you fail. I hope you fail your N.E.W.T. and go on to fail at life."

"So, that's a no?" the boy asked.

Hermione gave him a scathing look and left Ravenclaw Tower without another word. She headed down to the herb garden, planning to sit in the fall sun and try to soak in some heat and light before she tackled a Defense essay on obscure fairy threats. There were a lot of obscure fairy threats and so far she'd not gotten anything more than a check mark on any essay she'd turned in for Molly Weasley and she wanted to force the woman to acknowledge her work as excellent even if she had to write a bloody dissertation on glastigs and red caps.

She paused at the door to the walled garden because she saw a familiar blond head with what looked like four - maybe five - girls and his ginger-haired shadow, Andy. He was explaining a first year transfiguration exercise (and Andy was, it seemed, shamelessly showing off for the audience). She coughed and Draco looked up and she could feel the smile tiptoe over her mouth and settle into place. His own lips turned up in an answering look of equal delight before he replaced the unguarded smile with his more usual smirk.

"Care to join us?" he asked.

"Looks like you've got it," she said, leaning up against the doorframe. "I think I'll just watch."

He nodded and went back to walking them through the work and she felt something in her heart flutter and something prick at her eyes as Draco Malfoy, surrounded by children, explained with care and patience how to turn a snail into a teapot.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Morning, lovelies!**


	73. Chapter 73

When Draco got back to his room Theodore was lying on his bed, hands behind his head, and staring up at the ceiling. "Why are our parents such arseholes?" he asked.

Draco set his bag down on his desk and began to pull out his books and arrange them in careful, alphabetical order on the small shelf; there were some things that he didn't think were worth thinking about in too much detail and the way their parents had both thought Voldemort was just a great idea was one of them. The way he'd thought Voldemort was a great idea at first was one of them. He liked to blame his on being really young and really stupid, but it was hard to picture his father ever being either young or stupid much less both at the same time. "Did you get an owl?" he asked Theodore. Mail from Azkaban was censored, infrequent, and something that often brought with it a large dose of guilt.

"Mmm," Theodore said noncommittally. "You're my best friend, Draco, " he said. "You and that daft girlfriend of yours."

"Hermione?" Draco asked. "Daft?"

"She'd have to be to be willing to be involved with you. You - me, both of us - we're the damned. Do you ever count how many people in one day just refuse to see you? Their eyes slide over me like I'm not there."

"No," Draco said. He stared at the wall in front of him as he stood without moving. "I don't count. I don't want to know."

"Did you hear those bastards at Rebuilding Day?" Theodore went on. "Death Eater lovers. That's what they get called. Hermione. Susan. Neville. All of them, just for talking to us." His words hitched in a suspicious way but Draco didn't turn and let Theodore collect himself in what passed for privacy in a small dorm room. "Maybe we should just leave. They'd all have a better year without us around."

"Don't let Hermione hear you say that," Draco advised.

"She hits, I know," Theodore said. "Merlin, I adore your girlfriend, Draco. She's fucking crazy for giving you the time of day but she's like a force of nature when she's pissed off."

"Theodore," Draco began, turning at last.

"No one will ever - "

" - is this about Neville?"

"Maybe. Yes. No. I don't know." Theodore sat up. "Do you want a drink?"

"No," Draco said. "And neither do you." He picked up the piece of parchment that had been crumpled into a ball on the floor. It was an owl from Azkaban. Theodore's father sent his love. He hoped everything was going well. He hoped Theodore wasn't an outcast. He was so, so sorry. If he'd known, things would have been different. He hoped someday Theodore could forgive him. Would Theodore please put flowers on his mother's grave?

Draco smoothed the note out and set it on Theodore's desk. "Doesn't seem too bad," he said. "Better than my last conversation with my parents."

"Fuckers," Theodore said. "They fucked up their lives and we pay the price."

"Did Neville - "

"Neville's great," Theodore said. "He's great. And he's not sure but he's… but even if he is, being involved with one of us is like painting a target on yourself." He reached under his bed and pulled out another bottle of fire whiskey. Draco yanked it from Theodore's hands and, setting it down on his desk, said, "How about a walk instead?"

"How's your knife?" Theodore asked. Draco's face must have registered his shock because Theo immediately looked guilty. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm a fucking arsehole too."

"I didn't know you - "

"Of course I know," Theodore snorted. "I've known you since we were toddlers. I just figured you didn't want to talk about it so…"

"Yeah." Draco sank down onto his bed and rolled back his sleeve and looked at his arm. The cuts he'd made after his lunch time conversation with his mother on Rebuilding Day had healed. He had a suspicion Hermione was casting healing charms on him when he wasn't looking but he hadn't asked. "It's been mostly better since…"

"Since Hermione," Theodore said. "Does she know?"

"She… yeah. She knows."

Theodore's lips curved up in a sad smile. "She loves you, that one. Like I said, daft."

"Maybe," Draco said.

"No," Theodore said. "There's no maybe. She's daft all right." He paused. "You're lucky, Draco. Really lucky."

"You will be too."

"Maybe." He reached his hand out for the bottle and then, at Draco's look, let his hand fall down. "Fine," he said. "A walk."


	74. Chapter 74

"What is it with you and the crisps?" Pansy demanded as she flopped down onto the couch next to Andy. She eyed the bowl Hannah had set out with disdain. "Can't we shake it up at all? Don't we even have any of the gingersnaps left?"

"All gone," Hannah said, apparently unbothered by Pansy's diatribe. "I had too much to do today to come up with anything better. Sorry."

"The essays," Pansy agreed in mock misery. "It's like they're trying to kill us."

"That was last year," Padma said as she curled up onto one of the large chairs swathed in a giant jumper. Pansy snorted as the rest of the Recovery Group regulars trickled in. Draco and Hermione entwined themselves on one seat with her head on his shoulder and his hand resting under her shirt against her skin. Susan sat on one couch with arms crossed and head tipped back so she was staring up at the ceiling. Ginny sat on the floor, leaning up against a couch so she could reach the crisps as easily as possible, something she took immediate advantage of by grabbing the bowl and setting it at her side and then popping crisps into her mouth one at a time. Theo sat next to Susan, his knee almost brushing against hers, and she turned her head briefly to give him a wan smile. Neville picked a hard backed chair and stretched his legs out in front him, looking nervously like he was afraid he might knock the bowl Ginny had on the floor.

"Who's trying to kill us?" Theo asked.

"Molly Weasley, based on my essay load," Padma muttered.

"Death by hand cramp," Draco agreed. "Is she even reading them?"

"I don't think so," Theo said, rather obviously disgruntled. "All I ever get is a check mark."

"Really?" Neville sounded surprised. "She writes long comments on mine."

They all looked at him and Theo said, as if explaining the obvious. "You're a hero. We're Death Eater scum."

"Doesn't matter," Hermione said in a tone that suggested she was trying to convince herself. "All that really matters is the N.E.W.T. score and she is a good teacher even if - "

"She's a prejudiced bitch?" Pansy said. "I cannot tell you how glad I am that I am not in that class. I'm not sure Hagrid even knows who I am, so Monsters is fine, and Sprout only cares about plants." She shrugged. "Hell, I like Herbology even though it means Neville and I get awfully cozy."

"Still, better than last year," Padma said. "The Carrows were actually trying to kill us." She glanced uneasily at Draco and Theo. "Maybe not all of us, but - "

"It might as well have been all of us, " Pansy said. "They had some fucked up ideas of how to motivate people. Merlin, I hated them; I used to fantasize about poisoning them."

"Me too," Susan said. "They were just - "

"Evil," Andy said, his voice little and lost on the couch next to Pansy. "They were evil."

"They were," Pansy agreed and made a gesture likes was going to ruffle his hair and then thought better of it. "The way they used to think it was just the best thing ever to make you practice curses on kids… I'll take Hagrid not being able to remember my name any day."

"I think, sometimes," Draco said, his voice as lost as Andy's, "that I… I deserve… I'm as bad as they were."

"You are not!" Hermione twisted in his arms to look at him.

"I let the Death Eaters in," he said. "I almost killed Katie Bell and your Weasley. I used the Imperius curse I don't know how many times." His voice broke and he closed his eyes and turned his head. "I tortured kids. I can't… I still see these little faces in front of me and I… I just…"

"It's okay," Hannah said, though she didn't sound sure.

"It's not," Draco shook his head, his eyes still closed.

"We were… we should have stood up to them," Theo said quietly. "We didn't. We just… we tried to skirt around it and - "

"What could you have done?" Padma asked.

"I don't know!" The words burst out of Draco. "All I could think was, 'Do this or your mum dies, do this or everyone dies' and I hated it, I hated all of it, but I don't know what else I could have done but I should have done _something_. I shouldn't have…" He turned to Andy and said, voice shaking, "I'm so sorry, Andrew. I'm so, so sorry. I should have been like Neville. I should have told them to fuck off. And I didn't and I hurt you and I'm so… nothing I can do can ever make up for that and - "

Draco stood up, pushing Hermione off his lap, and shoved his way out of the room.

"But he didn't hurt me," Andrew said to the slammed door and the shocked silence of the room.

Theo looked at Hermione. "Go," he said.

She nodded and Pansy stood up with her. "I'll get you through the door," she said. "And deal with any shite from the peons in the Common Room.

. . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good morning?**


	75. Chapter 75

Posy snapped, "Salazar" at the door and dragged Hermione behind her through a common room filled with students in green who stopped and stared at the pair. "Problem?" Pansy demanded.

"No problem," someone muttered, his hands held out in supplication.

Hermione hesitated at the start of the corridor that led to the boys' rooms. "The wards," she said when Pansy gave her an exasperated look.

Pansy snorted. "The wards keep boys out of the girls' rooms but not the other way around."

"But that's - "

"Stupid and sexist, I agree. Now can we go?"

Hermione followed Pansy until the girl stopped at a plain, dark wooden door and pounded on it. She didn't wait for an answer, through, and just opened it and they both pushed their way into a small room with two beds. Hermione noted the room was almost identical to the one she'd stayed in over the summer and that it felt crowded with both boys' furniture and things in it. Draco was standing at one of the desks, his hands braced on the top, bent over with his hair falling down into his face. He didn't look up as they entered.

"Draco," Pansy said, "Back away from the desk."

"Fuck you," he said. He did look at Hermione then. "Thanks a lot."

"She didn't tell me," Pansy said. "I've known you since we started at this stupid school and I'm not an idiot. I know Theo's a drunk. I know Susan's sleeping with every guy she can manage to trip up. I know you cut at that fucking Mark and I can make a damn good guess where the knife is, so back away from the drawer before I make you back away."

"I can't do this anymore," he said. "I want to - "

"Shag your girlfriend, I know," Pansy said, "and I just let her in on the secret about the long dismantled warding on this wing of the dorms so you might even get a chance, but I am not into her - or you - so you're just going to have to wait until I leave."

Hermione wrapped her arms around the shaking man and said, "I'm here. It's okay. You aren't a monster."

"I am," he whispered into her hair. "Death Eater. Scum. I can't forgive myself. I just can't."

Pansy put her own arms around him. "You're not a monster," she said. "You did what you had to do to survive. None of the kids you pointed a wand at blame you. Andrew doesn't blame you."

"He should," Draco said.

"Well, he doesn't," Hermione said. "I don't, Andrew doesn't; he's got a case of rather serious hero worship, to be honest. You have to stop hating yourself. No one who matters does. Everyone understands - "

"Molly Weasley doesn't," he said. "Those people at -"

"Fuck her," Hermione said, "And fuck them.

The three of them stood there in silence as Draco shuddered in the arms of the two women and finally straightened up and, swallowing hard said, "I'm okay now. I'm fine." He sighed. "Thank you."

"You're a liar," Pansy said softly, "but you're one of my best friends so I'll let it go. I'd like to kill anyone who… but, since I can't, I'll settle for keeping you from making it worse for yourself. You don't get to wallow alone. You have a whole bunch of people now who - "

"My mother," he said, almost helplessly.

"Is as much of a prejudiced old bat as mine," Pansy said. "And so what? You'll run off with the bushy-haired heroine here, and I'll run off with my friend, and we'll all be happy without the crud they want to pass down to us along with the silver and the china."

"I hate the Malfoy china," Draco muttered. "Ever since I broke a plate as a kid and my mother lectured me on taking care of things for 30 minutes instead of just using _reparo._ I had to learn responsibility, she said."

Both women laughed at his petulant tone and he let a tiny, self-conscious grin escape and sat down on his bed and looked at both of them. "I don't suppose you'd consider a quick three-way?" he quipped, his voice still a little unsteady. "I mean, since you're both here and Theo's probably off making doe eyes at Neville or something and we won't get interrupted."

Hermione looked at Pansy and both women made identical exasperated faces.

"In your dreams," Hermione muttered.

Draco grinned at her, still shaky but regathering his equilibrium. "If I'm lucky, they'll be detailed dreams."

"Pig," Pansy said and sat down next to him. "You're lucky I don't hex your balls off."

"Right?" Hermione said, and sat on the other side. The held on to him for a long time, leaning heads up on each shoulder, as he held their hands and sat in silence.

"Thank you," he said eventually. "Thank you."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Happy Friday!**


	76. Chapter 76

Hermione and Hannah sat in the Head's office, hands crossed in their laps as they waited for Minerva McGonagall to respond to their suggestion. Hermione could feel the way the hard seat pressed into her and how she had her weight a little more on one side but didn't want to shift lest she seem nervous. Next to her, Hannah's fingers seemed to slowly tighten their grip on one another. At last, McGonagall said, "That would be a great deal of work."

"With all due respect," Hannah said, "I don't think it would be more work - quite a great deal less, really - than Rebuilding Day, and I think it would do more to promote a sense of togetherness, of unity, among the students."

"Rebuilding Day was hard on people without parents," Hermione said.

"Very hard," Hannah said.

"Yes," McGonagall admitted, "But it gave us a chance to showcase the school to all of wizarding Britain, to let people see that it had, indeed, been rebuilt, that students were thriving, that we had all survived." She frowned. "And it gave parents a chance to see their children were safe which, after last year, was a concern for many people."

"Then that purpose is done," Hannah said. "But we still need to heal the wounds the students bear. It's not just walls that were broken."

There was another long patch of silence as McGonagall looked at the girls and Hermione could feel the urge to fidget again. Most of the portraits pretended to sleep, though Snape's visage sneered at her from his frame. She ignored him.

"This is not a Hogwarts tradition," McGonagall said.

"Perhaps it should be," Hermione countered. "There is almost no way for students to socialize outside their Houses. We take separate classes. Sit at separate tables - "

"I have noticed you have not been sitting at separate tables," McGonagall said.

"A handful of mostly adult students doesn't change a culture of isolation," Hannah said. "Hermione is right. "We need more structured events that bring people together and we need a chance to celebrate in a way that doesn't make so many people miserable the way a parent's day did."

"And you want this to be all students," McGonagall said, the near-question laced with her obvious doubt that was a good thing.

"Yes," Hermione said. "I realize the first and second years are probably not interested - "

"Do not underestimate the hormones of students in even the earliest stages of puberty," McGonagall said. "Some of them are downright boy crazy."

Hermione smiled tightly as she continued. " - but I think - we think - getting all the students together for a formal social event will help break down barriers and help people make friends in other Houses."

Headmistress McGonagall sighed. "Fine," she said. "Have your Yule Ball. I'll get the Head Boy and Head Girl to organize the prefects to do the bulk of the work." Both girls began to smile until McGonagall held up her hand. "But," she added, "We will have to have a photographer here for the _Prophet_. You may have noticed how small the incoming class was this year?"

Both girls nodded.

"People are afraid to send their children here after last year. Between Snape, however much he may have turned out to be on the side of the angels in the end, and the Carrows, neither of whom would have known an angel if she came and danced on the head of their pin-sized brains, people decided Hogwarts was unsafe. They're sending their children abroad if they can afford it - even, Merlin help us - to the United States - and if they can't, they're educating at home. I want British children back in a British wizarding school and if that means turning your social event into a bit of marketing than I will." She took a deep breath. "Have I made myself clear?"

Hermione coughed a little. At McGonagall's look she said, "Harry and Ginny are still dating. I'm sure, if you invited him, he'd be happy to come back and - "

"Excellent thinking," the headmistress said. "We will make a politician of you yet."

Hermione shook her head.

"No?"

"Draco and I are planning to move in with Theodore," she said. "Maybe do some magical research, maybe do some writing."

Minerva McGonagall regarded Hermione with a sad, knowing look on her face. "If you plan to deal with the Malfoy family, my dear, you'll end up a politician whether you want to or not." She then shook her head and stood. "One Yule Ball, the last night before the winter holiday break. I'll speak to the Heads this afternoon and announce it at dinner."

Hermione and Hannah stood as well. "Thank you, ma'am," Hannah said.

"You're welcome," McGonagall said. "Now go and plague someone else, before you ask for some other labor creating but logical activity."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Happy weekend to the loveliest readers in all of fandom.**


	77. Chapter 77

True to her word, McGonagall announced that there would be a Ball the final evening of the term at dinner that night. The Dining Hall became a sea of excited whispers with currents that whirled around as heads tipped together at every table and the first years began bouncing in their seats at the news they got to go as well.

"She went for it," Theo said as he poured himself some pumpkin juice with a bit of a face. He made a movement toward his pocket as though he were going to pull out a flask but, at Draco's look, made a disgruntled sound and just took another roll instead.

"She did," Hannah said, sounding pleased. "And she's even going to make the Heads do the planning work so all we have to do is show up." The whole group made pleased murmurs at that. For all that they'd wanted this ball, had concocted the idea of this ball, and had decided to pitch this ball to the Headmistress, none of them actually wanted to be in charge of decorating, or finding musicians, or policing the punch. "They get the shiny badges." Hermione had said, only a tiny bit bitter that she would never get that shiny badge. "Let them do the work."

Pansy turned to Padma. "Wanna go to the dance with me?" she asked.

"Do you promise to not ignore me the whole evening so you can stare at Hermione like you want to kill her in a fit of jealous rage?" Padma asked. "Because the last time we had a dance at Hogwarts, that was what my date did."

Draco began to choke on his own juice and Hermione turned red.

Pansy sniggered and said, "As I recall my own date at that event stared at Hermione for more than a moment too. Rude, Draco. Very rude."

"She cleans up well," Draco muttered. "I was surprised, that was all."

"Well, this time you can look at me all you want," Hermione said, smiling at him as she spooned some of the roasted root vegetables onto her plate.

"I was going to ask Ginny," Draco said in mock surprise. "I don't think she'd like me staring at you. She might hex me so…"

Hermione thrust her lip out in a pout and, as Hannah began to explain that Harry was going to be invited up, Draco leaned over and kissed Hermione. Her pout turned to a smirk and then she was just kissing him back until Theo said, "Some of us are trying to eat over here," and the pair separated.

"Will you go to the ball with me," Draco asked Hermione, taking her hand in his and twisting his fingers around and around hers.

Hermione shrugged and tilted her head. "Maybe," she said. "What's in it for me? I mean, now that I know Ginny was your first choice…" She trailed off.

Draco put his mouth at her ear and murmured, so quietly no one but her could hear, "You are my first choice now. You'll be my first choice tomorrow. You'll be my first choice in a year. I'd ask you to commit to more than the ball, but I'm afraid you'd say yes and I don't have the appropriate jewelry to hand." He brushed his lips over her skin and said, "But, despite my teasing, I'd like you to say yes to at least the dance."

She gulped. "I'd say yes to anything you asked," she whispered against his skin. "And it's nice to see you a little more confident again." She lay her head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her.

"You two are so sweet I may vomit," Ginny said.

"Agreed," Pansy said. "That's settled. In news that shocks exactly no one, Draco and Hermione are going to the dance together. And Harry's coming up to keep Ginny out of trouble. And Padma and I will coordinate our dresses and look better than the rest of you combined."

Hannah turned toward Neville and had her mouth opened, but Theo had already muttered, "Willing to be seen in public with me?" to Neville who, turning red, nodded.

Hannah plastered a smile on her face and looked away. "Who are you going to ask, Susan?" she said.

Susan shrugged. "Men are all pigs," she said. "Does it matter? I'll find one."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - This fic passed 7,000 reviews yesterday! I didn't even realize such a thing was possible but I am unreasonably excited by it. Thank you, lovely, lovely readers for being the energy that pushes this fic along with your enthusiasm!_**

 ** _It's hard to communicate just how important reviews are to keep a fic going when life and winter and darkness are all ready to urge you to quit but, clearly, I don't need to tell you because you know! And thank you!_**


	78. Chapter 78 (The Quidditch Match)

"Ugh," Hermione said. "Do I have to go to Quidditch? I thought with Ron and Harry not here I could get away with not going to the games."

"It's the first game of the year," Draco said, tugging her along the corridor by the hand. "Slytherin versus Gryffindor. Ginny's the Seeker and the captain. Yes, you have to go."

"I hate Quidditch," she muttered. "Someone's always getting hurt and it's usually Harry."

"Well," Draco said with what he thought was inescapable logic, "Harry's not here so what could possibly happen?"

"Death?" Hermione suggested. "Crippling injury? You know how Ginny flies. She could plunge head first into the ground and - "

"She could do that when she's just flying with me," Draco said. "Let's go."

There was a bit of a scuffle when she automatically headed for the Gryffindor section of the stands once they got to the pitch and he likewise turned toward the Slytherin section. They stared at one another. "Lady's choice," Draco said at last, putting a determined smile on his face. Hermione glanced up at her red and gold clad housemates, waving flags and setting off noisemakers, and then over the the smaller Slytherin contingent, just as loud in green and silver.

"Maybe your friends for this game," she said, thinking of the sign that still hung on her door because she was just too stubborn to remove it.

"Friends," Draco said as they walked up to the Slytherin section. "Interesting word choice."

Pansy was already there, however, and Theo with a flask in his hands that he offered to Hermione. She gave him a worried look, glanced at Draco, and then thanked him but turned it down. Pansy had the little first years in front of her and was passing them trick wands she'd made that shot off green sparks and yelled rude catcalls at the opposing team.

"That's a nice bit of charm work," Hermione said as Trista shook hers and watched the results with wide eyes. "Yours?"

"I may not be the brightest witch of my age, but I'm no slouch," Pansy said.

"Never said you were," Hermione said as she sat down on the bench and let Draco wrap a blanket he produced from nowhere around their shoulders.

"Why aren't you with your own House?" some Slytherin boy challenged her. "Did they kick you out for daring to consort with snakes?"

She turned and looked at the boy. He had pale skin and dark hair and lips so red she couldn't help but think of Snow White. He flushed under her scrutiny, the white of his cheeks showing every moment of his embarrassment but he didn't back down. "They would prefer I not date Draco," she said at last. "Do you have opinions on the matter as well?"

"Your side hates all of us," he said. "No one protected us last year. We didn't even get the chance to be anything but hated and now you prance over here like you're going to redeem us all with your war heroine crap."

The rest of the stands were still filled with cheering and screaming students as the Quidditch teams strode out onto the pitch and Madam Hooch gave a speech about a clean game but the benches near Draco and Hermione got very quiet as they waited for her answer.

"I'm not your redemption," Hermione said, "but you're right; It wasn't fair."

"Damn right," some girl said. "I'm no Alecto-fucking-Carrow."

"Why is being ambitious bad? Why does everything think we're bad?" It was little Sarah was asked that, twisting on her bench to look up at Hermione and the older Slytherins. "I was so scared when I got Sorted into Slytherin. I thought - "

"You thought we were all blood-thirsty maniacs," the pale boy said in disgust. "That's what everyone thinks. Bullies and jerks and lunatics."

"Well," Draco muttered, "in all fairness, I was a shite for years."

"Yeah," said Theo, "but so was that Zacharias Smith and people didn't assume that just because he was an utter arse all of Hufflepuff was untrustworthy."

"That Edgecomb girl actually turned you people in," another boy said looking directly at Hermione. "But all of Ravenclaw wasn't kept out of the resistance because of that. Only us."

"I said it wasn't fair," Hermione said. "What do you want me to do about it now?"

"Nothing," the pale boy said bitterly. "There's nothing anyone can do."

"Bullshite," Pansy said. "You just want to wallow. Some of us are doing just fine making friends in other Houses and getting on with things in our life. You should stop feeling sorry for yourself and try it." She ruffled Sarah's hair. "And there's nothing wrong with being ambitious. You can do anything you want to, sweetheart. And we'll all help you, because that's what we do. Snakes stick together." She glanced at Hermione. "We all stick together."

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Happy Monday, wonderful people!**_

 ** _Another 1500 words written in the novel, another chapter posted, and now it's time to do the laundry!_ **


	79. Chapter 79

Hermione cheered during the Quidditch game for both Slytherin and Gryffindor, confusing and irritating some of the students seated near her. She gasped and hid her face when Ginny pointed her broom straight at the ground and flew with a speed that seemed determined to result in catastrophe but which merely ended with her pulling up inches from the grass and laughing at the Slytherin Seeker who'd assumed any kind of death defying move like that had to involve the Snitch and who didn't stop in time. There was a brief pause in the match while the Slytherin Seeker was carried off the pitch to the infirmary and a substitute mounted her broom. The sub, however, was wary of Ginny and didn't fall for subsequent feints. She was also too cautious and so, when Ginny flew as high as she could the other Seeker didn't follow her, and Ginny caught the Snitch where it hovered as she made lazy spirals down from the heights that the other Seeker ignored, assuming it was just another trick.

Hermione shrieked when she saw the flash of gold in Ginny's hand and Draco murmured, "That's my Gin," before putting on an appropriately disappointed face for his Housemates.

They were walking out of the stands, the blanket over Draco's arm, when Theodore offered Hermione his flask. She took it with a smile, unscrewed the top, and poured the contents out over the dirt at they walked back to the castle.

Theodore snatched it back from her hand but it was too late. "That was 24-year-old, small-batch, oak aged whiskey," he said in outrage.

"How pleased I am to hear you're trying to drown yourself with the good booze," Hermione said. She put a hand on his arm and led his from the stream of students over to a spot of relative privacy. "You need to stop."

Theodore crossed his arms and glowered at her. "I don't want to," he said, "And last I checked, you weren't my mother or my keeper."

"No," she said softly, "But I'm your friend and I - "

"No one cares if if I live or die," Theodore interrupted her. "Not really. You and Draco would be super sad, I'm sure, even wear black to my funeral, but no one cares about a Death Eater's kid— "

"Stop it," Hermione said. "I care. I love you, you idiot, and so does Draco, and so does - "

"Don't say Neville," Theodore warned her. "Neville isn't even sure he likes boys and isn't that fun."

"What?" she asked.

"Being someone's experiment," Theodore said. He sounded bitter and hopeless and lost all at the same time and he went to take a drink from his flask and then looked at it with aggravation. "Why did you have to do that, Hermione?"

"You have to stop," she said. "Please. I care. Draco cares. _Susan_ cares. None of us want you drinking yourself to death."

"You don't," he said. "Not really." At Hermione's glare he looked away as he amended his statement. "Well, Susan's a puff. She cares about everyone." He paused. "Except maybe herself."

"When did this start," Hermione asked him.

"Seventh year," he said. "With the Carrows and my Dad… it was just easier to numb the feelings. Made the days bearable and with enough of it I could sleep. I don't hate myself for being what I am quite as much when I'm… you know."

"Stop," Hermione said again. "Please."

Theodore took a deep breath and met Hermione's eyes. "I don't know if I can anymore," he admitted.

"Do you want to?" Draco asked, his hand unconsciously moving to his own arm.

"Some days," Theodore said. He let out a huff. "Not right now. Right now I want a drink to deal with this conversation."

"Can you manage to not until next weekend?" Hermione asked.

"Seven days?" Theodore asked her. He closed his eyes and said, desperately, "Why do you care so much?"

Hermione was about to tell him he was her friend, that of course she cared, but Draco stopped her by drawling, "We need your house, Theodore. Didn't I tell you we plan to move in after graduation?"

Hermione went to hit Draco on the arm but stopped when Theodore said, his eyes still closed, "So sobering me up is about your own needs."

"Of course it is," Draco said, flashing a warning look at Hermione. "You have house elves, space, and - and this is key - my mother doesn't live there. We have a vested interest in you not dying."

"How Slytherin of you," Theodore said. "I can accept that." Hermione wrapped him in a hug. "Fucking touchy-feely Gryffindor," he muttered. "Your stupid hair is getting in my mouth."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, lovelies!_**

 ** _Just a quick reminder that the best way to get a timely answer to a question is tumblr (though I SWEAR I'm going to try to through PMs today)._**


	80. Chapter 80

Before the Yule Ball could arrive with beautiful dresses and lit trees and romance and, presumably, spiked punch, there was Halloween and with it the Halloween Feast. The eighth years sat at what had become their end of the Slytherin table and looked at the candy piled in the middle of the table with less than ecstatic looks on their faces. Theo reached for the flask he expected to find in his pocket and made a face when it wasn't there. Hermione tucked a hand into his and he squeezed her fingers.

"It's not that I don't like candy," Pansy said at last, ignoring the byplay between Theo and Hermione and focusing instead on the piles of treats. "Though I'm getting a little old for chocolate frogs - "

"The chocolate is really not very good," Hermione muttered.

"Right?" Hannah said. "Is there even cocoa in that."

Theo laughed at the chocolate snobbery and, grateful to be distracted from his missing flask, he unwrapped a frog and pointed it in Susan's direction so its one good jump landed it in her hair. "Theodore," she said with exasperation as she pulled the thing out. "You are such a jerk."

He snickered and unwrapped another one, sending it at Neville, who caught it. "A lifetime of toad familiars," Neville said. "These things can't get away from me." He set it down and looked at it. "Of course, it also feels a little weird to eat them."

Pansy was still poking at the bowl filled with Every Flavour Beans. "I just want a salad," she said. "Or some of that lentil soup with the fresh tomatoes. Just something… not sweet."

"It's Halloween," Draco said, taking a handful of red hot candied that periodically burst into flame. "It's supposed to be about candy." He popped one in his mouth. "Though I admit I wouldn't turn my nose up at something less - "

"I want tomato soup," Padma said.

Hannah and Susan both tried to be subtle in the way they turned to look at her. Hermione lifted her head and peered at the jumper clad girl through her lashes. Pansy just whipped around and asked, "What did you say?"

"Soup," Padma said. "I wish we had some kind of plain soup instead of… this." She pointed a finger at a giant glass jar of licorice whips, twitching inside their container.

"Me too," Pansy said, dropping a handful of Bernie Bott's beans on the table and standing up. "Let's go."

"Where?" Padma asked,not moving.

"Kitchens," Pansy said. "I'm sure the elves have soup around, they always do." She looked around at the other women, none of whom had moved. "Patil here wants soup," she said. "Get moving."

Hannah almost knocked the bench over in her haste to stand up. Susan grabbed a napkin and tried to wipe bits of chocolate out of her hair that Theodore's frog had left in its wake as she began to follow them. Hermione gave Draco a kiss before she rose. "Try to avoid trolls," he said as he let her go. "See you for a walk later?"

"After curfew?" she said in mock horror. "But the rules, Malfoy."

"The rules, Granger," he teased back.

"Herb garden," she said and he nodded.

Theodore watched the group of women walk out of the Dining Hall, slipping out of the doors mostly unnoticed, and then scooted a little closer to Neville on the bench. "Do you think they'll get her to eat?" he asked.

Neville smiled at Theodore. "If anyone can, it's Pansy," he said. "That woman is a force of nature."

"She is," Draco agreed. "Anyone have any idea who her mystery guy is?"

Neville and Theodore both shook their heads and stared at the piles of candy that filled the tables. "You know," Neville said at last, "Im not exactly in the mood for tomato soup but I could do with something less sugary too. I have some things up in my room that my gran sent me." He glanced at Theodore. "Interested?"

Theodore nodded and the two ambled out, trying to look as casual as they could.

Draco was left alone at the Slytherin table and he sighed and leaned on one hand as he pushed the platters of candy aside and began spooning some roasted meat and vegetables onto his plate. "It's as if they've ever dealt with the candy feast before," he muttered. Some of the sixth and seventh years laughed and, encouraged, he moved down to sit closer to them. One of them passed him a pitcher with some water and he thanked him.

"No trouble," the boy said. "You're one of us, aren't you?"

Draco smiled a little at that and said, "Guess I am," as he popped one of the red hots into mouth.

"Damn it," he swore as the candy lit up in his mouth and he had to take a sudden gulp of water.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hi!_**


	81. Chapter 81

Hermione slipped out of the portrait hole and walked as softly as she could through the stone halls as she made her way to the herb garden. At least two ghosts, one of whom looked horribly like Lavender, disappeared through walls as she turned corners but she made her way to the outside with no incidents. Draco was waiting for her, a thermos in his hands. He smiled when he saw her, one of those rare smiles with no trace of his usual smirk, no hint of self-mockery, just happiness.

"I brought chocolate," he said, holding up the warm cylinder. "In case you hadn't gotten enough sweets, I guess."

She tucked a hand into his as he stood up and took a moment to just let herself be. In his presence she could feel all her worries about Molly Weasley and her own case of what seemed to be permanent invisibility, about Padma and her food, about Susan and her revolving door or male admirers, fall away. "You make everything easy," she murmured as she leaned against him. "Why is that?"

Draco Malfoy snorted inelegantly but wrapped the arm holding the chocolate around her. "First time anyone's ever thought that," he said.

They left the walled garden, filled with dead plants and beds neatly layered with mulch for the winter, and began walking down the slanted grounds in the dark. It was too overcast to see stars, and too cold to lie on the ground, so they kept walking in silence, passing the warm chocolate back and forth.

"It was a good idea to bring this," Hermione said. "Thank you."

"I'm just a thoughtful person," Draco said. "Manners. I know you don't have those in the Muggle world but - "

She smacked him in the arm and he laughed. "Are you sure you want to get serious about a worthless prat like me?" he asked her. "I'm dreadful, you know."

"Are you sure you want to get serious about a crazy Mudblood like me?" she countered. "Poor, unacceptable lineage - "

He stopped her from going on by pressing his lips to hers. She laughed against him but soon focused her attention on his mouth and hers and the way two people can communicate without words. When Draco pulled away and rested his forehead against hers he said, returning to speech, "I'm a bit of a mess, you know."

"Me too," she said.

"And my parents are - "

"I know." She rubbed her nose against his and then pressed her lips to first his nose, then his mouth. "We just fit," she said. "I never would have expected this but you just… you get me. It's easy with you."

"Yeah," he admitted. "With you too. It doesn't make any sense. It should be someone like Pansy or Daphne who just understands without… but it's not."

"It's nice to have something not be hard," Hermione said.

Draco, unable to resist, made a slight coughing noise and, taking her hand, pressed it to himself. She let her hand rest on his trousers and then looked around. It it had been light enough, Draco would have seen nerves in her eyes. As it was he just heard her swallow and say, "I could…"

He tried for a confident smirk. "I wouldn't say no," he said, the nervous near-crack to his voice belying the expression she couldn't see anyway.

Hermione knew he expected - or at least hoped - she'd just slip a hand into his trousers but a streak of mischievousness and bravery drove her to fumble with the belt and tug his clothes down and bare him to the cold night air. His intake of breath turned to an actual gasp when she knelt down on the ground, ground that was indeed damp and cold and had a stick jabbing into her knee and ground that made her wish she'd thrown on warmer clothes before coming out on this walk. His gasp got louder when she took him in her mouth and began, with no confidence she was doing it at all right, to run her mouth along him with some tentative suction.

Draco Malfoy, the movement unsure as if he thought she might get angry, put his hands on her head and made some noises that suggested that, despite her inexperience, this was not going wholly badly. "Hermione," he muttered soon after she'd started with desperation and fervency as he began jabbing at the back of her throat and she realized all she had to do was not gag. Some part of her brain, the part that wasn't thinking about that stick poking into her and wondering if she could managed to push it away without ruining the moment, and the part that wasn't rather amazed that she was down on her knees on the grounds of her school rather fervently hoping no one else had decided to go for a walk, noted that she'd thought this would take a little more work on her part. Draco suddenly grabbed at her hair hard enough to hurt and he was done and she swallowed with a grimace of both distaste and self-satisfaction.

That chocolate he'd brought had been a really good idea.

She pulled back and stood up and he yanked his clothing back into place as she picked up the thermos from where it had fallen, unscrewed the lid, and took a long drink.

"That was brilliant," Draco said, breathy and sounding a little stunned. "Just… wow. Thank you." He grabbed at her and kissed her again. "I… wow."

"It wasn't terrible?" she asked. "I've never - "

"Not terrible," he said. "Not at all. I mean, it's not like I… I don't really have any point of comparison but - "

"Really?"

"Really." He tightened his grip on her. "I could return the favor?"

Hermione thought about the ground and shivered. "If you don't mind," she said, "I'd kind of like my first time to be somewhere warmer."

"I can do that," Draco said. "Will do that. I promise."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - He does, too, but not for a few more chapters._**


	82. Chapter 82

"What is that?" Theodore pointed to the bundle Draco's large owl had dropped off at the breakfast table. The owl had not been happy, which, given the size of the package, was understandable. It had almost let its burden loose on Draco's head, a sign of avian displeasure, and had grabbed several pieces of bacon from Hermione's hand with a disgruntled look at Draco before it flew off.

"Brooms." Draco said. The explanation shouldn't have been necessary; only an idiot would look at the long, narrow bundle and think it contained anything other than brooms as it was very unlikely someone had suddenly decided to ship Draco Malfoy a mop or any other long, narrow item.

"Brooms plural?" Theodore asked. "Don't you already have the best broom money can buy? How many brooms does one man need?"

"I do have a fantastic broom, thank you for noticing," Draco said.

Hermione nearly choked on her tea and Theodore gave her a bland look. "You all right there?" he asked. "Anything you'd like to share about Draco's broom?"

The look she gave him would have scared most men. Theodore just smiled and arched his brows.

"Prick," she muttered.

"Do go on," Theodore invited. "Tell us more. Anything about the grounds of Hogwarts you'd like to add?"

Hermione turned bright red and looked like she wanted to slide under the table. She gave Draco a furious look he avoided meeting. "I ordered brooms for the first years," he said. "They can't learn to properly fly on those school brooms and - "

"First years can't have brooms," Pansy interrupted him. "Unless they're the Chosen One, an exception we all got to hear about in minute, unending detail."

"Bastard," Draco muttered, still obviously not over that Harry Potter had been permitted a broom his first year. "These are _my_ brooms," he said. "I'm just letting the girls borrow them to practice on." He leaned down the table at smirked at Ginny. "Prepare to have your Gryffindor team totally destroyed next year when my little cadre of Quidditch prodigies can try out."

She shrugged. "We're destroying you this year," she pointed out. "And next year I'll have graduated."

"Did you really buy good brooms for all four Slytherin first years?" Hannah asked. "That may be the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

"First years can't have brooms," Draco said in a tone that said this was obvious. "I bought myself multiple spares. Which I will loan to the girls."

"This I cannot wait to see," Pansy said. "Draco Malfoy teaching eleven-year-olds to fly."

Apparently Pansy's sentiment was universal because all the eighth years, Ginny, Andy, as well as a smattering of amused Slytherin upperclassmen appeared on the pitch that afternoon as Draco solemnly handed the brooms out to the girls, reminding them loudly that these were _his_ brooms and they were merely borrowing them but that they could keep them in their room as his was just much too small for all the extras.

Sarah gave him a hug that left him flummoxed as he stood on the pitch and waited for her to let go.

"Merlin, this is fucking adorable," Pansy said in an undertone to Hermione. "I may die from how cute this is."

Draco led the girls into the air and for an hour inadvertently highlighted how bad the first year flying lessons were; he taught them a series of maneuvers that probably would have given their parents heart attacks but they made all the watchers cheer with delight as Trista, who'd started out shaky and uncertain, developed enough confidence to skim the ground at high speed and scoop up a ball Draco had set there for her.

"He's really good at this," Susan said.

"I know," Hermione said as Draco picked up little Trista and swung her around with delight. "It's… I can't quite wrap my mind around it."

"He's probably never felt like he could relax before," Susan said. "All that pressure to be the perfect little aristocrat and then the war." She bit her lip as she watched Sarah fly much too fast on a broom much too powerful. "It's nice to just be."

Hermione nodded and glanced over at the other woman. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Really?"

Susan shrugged. "Shitty but I don't want to talk about it."

Hermione nodded. She knew that feeling well.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning to the loveliest people._**


	83. Chapter 83

Hannah had stopped even bothering to bring crisps. Snacks had become a rotating duty and today it was Susan's turn. She produced a platter of fruit which she sat on a table, ignoring Pansy's sniff about rabbit food, a sniff that became less huffy when Padma sat near the table, hesitantly helped herself to some grapes and, over the course of the meeting, put them one at a time into her mouth.

Andy scuffed his feet on the floor and said, "This isn't really about the… this is… never mind."

Instantly the rest of the room became far more interested in what he wasn't saying than he had probably intended them to. It was just, he explained, that they all got to go to the dance next month and he was wondering if he should ask a girl or would that be weird, would all the first and second years just go as a group?

Opinions were rapid and unified. He should ask the girl.

"Which girl?" Pansy wanted to know. "The little Gryffindor with the big scarf?"

Hermione had her head down over an essay she was rereading. "Her name's Sarida."

"Not Sari," Andy said. He mumbled the next word and Pansy jabbed at him to get him to repeat himself. "Trista," he said.

"Slytherin Trista?" Theo asked. He exchanged a look with Neville. "Looks like there'll be a lot of cross-House couples at the Yule Ball."

"Like me and Padma," Pansy said. "Ravenclaw-Slytherin love."

"Is your mystery guy a Ravenclaw?" Draco asked her. Pansy had remained resolutely unforthcoming with how she had met her unnamed beau, where he lived, anything at all about him. He was older. They were writing. It was none of their business.

"He's not a Slytherin, that's for sure," she said. "I've had it with you losers."

Neville was watching Hermione frown over her essay while the rest of the room gave Andrew advice on wooing girls, especially Slytherin girls. Pansy informed Theo that his advice as next to worthless as he'd never wooed any girl in his life and told Andrew to just ask little Trista out and ignore these elaborate and ridiculous suggestions. "I'll take her shopping," Pansy said. "We'll get her a pass to London and Hermione'll take us into these fabled Muggle shopping areas and we'll find things that no other witch will have. And Padma will do our hands and it will be gorgeous all around."

"Hermione," Neville said, "You've read that at least four times. What's the matter?"

"She never gives me more than a check," Hermione said. She sounded as if she were about to cry. "I worked really hard on this one. I cross-referenced all the Wizengamot cases that addressed the Imperius Curse and how it became Unforgivable. Did you know it was the last of the three curses to be so named? Or that until 1457 it was considered acceptable to use the Imperius on wives and minor children as long as the duration didn't exceed three hours?"

"That's a bit horrifying," Susan said.

"Right?" Hermione said. "And wizards argued for a long time that it was reasonable and to take away that way of controlling witches would result in chaos and the breakdown of morals and blah blah blah and all I got was a check mark!"

"Why are you even still writing them?" Theo asked her. "I just make sure the first few sentences are on topic and then just write down free association bullshite. You know she doesn't read anything any of the evil Death Eaters turn in."

"I was never a Death Eater," Hermione shrieked. "I nearly starved in the woods. I had to ride on a dragon! A bloody dragon! I do not like dragons! Not at all! And I had to ride on one because I _robbed a bank._ A bank. An actual bank with money and a dragon in it! _"_

 _"_ You also dumped my brother," Ginny said. "She's never going to get over that."

"And you're screwing a Death Eater," Pansy said. "It's like the Dark Mark by association."

"I am not!" Hermione was still almost shrieking. When she realized what had come out of her mouth she clapped both hands over it and turned bright red.

"Well," said Theo. "Thanks for that unwanted update on your sex life. Anyone else feel like telling us what they are and are not doing? Remember that Andy's here so keep the details to a minimum. Who among us is having sex? Don't all speak at once."

No one looked at Susan.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! You are all lovely and fabulous!_**


	84. Chapter 84

"Mind if I borrow your work?" Neville asked Hermione as they climbed the stairs to Gryffindor Tower. "I want to check a few things and I know your essay will be perfect."

Hermione stopped and fished the Defense essay out of her bag and handed it over. "I don't know if its perfect," she muttered. "It's just worth a check, that's all."

Neville took the parchment and put it into his own bag. "Don't let her get to you, Hermione," he said. "The only thing that really matters is the final N.E.W.T. score and you'll do just fine on that."

Hermione shrugged and was about to scoop up her bag again when Pansy came running up behind them, Padma and Susan in tow. "We're going to go talk about girl stuff," she said. "And not whatever assignment that Defense harpy set for you. Draco's off flying with your rival so now's a good time to go gossip and I'll even tell you about how I met mystery man."

Hermione's face must have registered her shock because Susan said, "You seemed a little down after Recovery Group yesterday - "

"You were howling about dragons," Pansy said.

" - and we thought you might do with a little distraction."

"That's… " Hermione looked at the other women and her mouth slowly curved into a smile. "That'd be great, thank you."

The five of them trooped down the hall to the portrait of the Fat Lady. She eyed the mixture of ties and gave an audible sniff but nevertheless opened when Neville said, "Bespattered cribbage set."

"What?" Pansy asked him.

"I didn't make it up," Neville said as they passed through. The common room grew quiet when the walked in and Neville leaned over and kissed Hermione on the cheek. "I'll give the essay back after dinner, okay?"

"Sure," she said.

The common room silence remained until Hermione, Padma, Susan and Pansy behind her, reached the door to her own room. "What the fuck is this?" Pansy demanded, her voice carrying down the corridor so everyone could hear her. She ripped down the sign still affixed to Hermione's door. "Death Eater's Whore? Who the fuck put this on your door while you were at class, what the fuck?"

"Pansy," Hermione said, reaching out a hand to stop the other woman from storming back to the round room with the upholstered furniture, ample use of the colour red, and silent, waiting Gryffindors. "It's been there since the first - "

"Oh fucking Merlin in a tree," Pansy said. "Someone put this on your door months ago and you _left_ it there? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"She's stubborn," Susan said, watching Hermione.

"She's stupid," Pansy corrected. "Never thought you'd go for self-flagellation like that, Hermione Granger." She marched down the hall back to the common room and wadding the note up, flung it into the face of a student standing there. "You arseholes," she said. "You utter arseholes. She risked everything, she's a member of your House, and you decide to turn on her because you don't like her boyfriend? What a bunch of judgmental arseholes."

"Nice vocabulary," one boy drawled. "I can see why you didn't get Sorted into Ravenclaw, Parkinson. Do you know any words other than, 'arsehole' and 'fuck' and 'give him Harry Potter'?"

"How about these," Padma said. She'd come up behind Pansy during her rant. "You are mediocre at best, hardly courageous, barely chivalrous. You are churlish, vexatious, contemptible knaves who left a note on a woman's door using an ad hominem attack to belittle her sexually because you knew you had no real argument."

"Unkind," Susan said.

"And technically untrue since he doesn't pay me," Hermione said. "Can we go into my room now." She glanced around at the gobsmacked Gryffindors then at the wadded up note on the floor. " _Incendio_ ," she murmured and it burst into flame.

"Wandless," Padma said. "Impressive."

"They tell me I'm an impressive girl," Hermione said.

"Then why are you hanging around with these people?" someone from the back of the gathered crowd demanded.

"Talk about people who didn't get Sorted into Ravenclaw," Pansy said. "Because we're her friends, you moron."

"Because we don't put signs on her door calling her a whore," Susan suggested.

"Well, you'd know a whore all right," someone said. Hermione, who had turned to go, froze. There was nervous rustling as she faced the room again and let her eyes slide over each person in it, one at a time.

"You'd best hope I never find out who said that," she said.

Someone murmured why should they be afraid of a Death Eater lover, and another voice said, "plan to use the Dark Arts on us, Granger?" but a more nervous whisper said what sounded like "Marietta Edgecomb" and another said, "she sent Umbridge to the centaurs."

"I'd forgotten you'd done that," Pansy said, a smirk on her face as she looped an arm around Hermione's shoulders. "I hated that woman."

"Everyone hated her," Padma said. "Stop pretending you're so special."

"Right?" said Susan. "Let's go. I want to hear about this guy, not talk to Hermione's awful Housemates."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - It's the weekend! Yay!_**


	85. Chapter 85

"So," Susan said. "How did you meet him?" She was sitting behind Padma and plaiting the other girl's hair into an elaborate waterfall braid that seemed to mesmerize both Hermione and Pansy.

"You have the best hair," Pansy said. "I think I want to grow mine out."

"Don't get sidetracked," Padma said. "The guy, Pansy, we want to know about the guy."

Pansy sighed and seemed to chew on the inside of her cheek before she said, "I was in a bookshop with Millie and we were arguing about kneazles and breeding and bloodlines and I'd just said, kind of loudly, that superior lineages mattered - which, by the way, they do in animal breeding so don't even start with me, Hermione - "

"I wasn't going to say anything," Hermione protested before coughing 'mudblood' under her breath.

Pansy threw a pillow at her. "You'd be what we'd call an outcross. Good for reinvigorating dying lines and a certain number are permissible, depending on breeding association standards." She sniffed. "And language, Miss Granger."

Susan laughed.

"Anyway," Pansy continued, "I heard this drawling voice commenting that that was exactly what he'd expect to hear from a London pureblood and I turned to give whoever the jerk was a piece of my mind and he was gorgeous. _Gorgeous_."

"You - you! - were derailed by a pretty face?" Hermione said in shock.

"So pretty," Pansy said, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "And not all skinny and wispy like Draco but he has this scar on his cheek and arms like - just perfection - and long hair and it was tied back with this leather strap and, oh, just perfect."

"You have a picture?" Padma asked.

"Not one I plan to show you," Pansy said. "So I mumbled something about how I was talking about cats, not people, and he smiled this little crooked smile and Millie began to laugh and then we were all having tea and biscuits while he talked about breeding animals and his experiences and then Millie went home and said she'd see me later and then he and I were having dinner and - "

Pansy stopped and sighed. "And now we're writing and I'm stuck at school and he's off and my mother would have actual bona fide hysterics if she knew and his mother would… actually seeing her have a fit might be worth it. But she'd definitely have a fit."

"Not a pureblood, I take it?" Padma asked, "if your mother would be upset?"

"Why would anyone object to you?" Susan asked. "You're not quite the little elite aristocrat Nott and Malfoy are but you're still… you're not exactly some - "

"Muggle-born?" Hermione interjected.

Susan turned red. "I know it's not fair," she said, "but you know people think that way."

"I do," Hermione said, keeping her thoughts away from Draco's parents with an act of mental discipline that would have pleased even the most stringent occlumency teacher.

""Give him Harry Potter' is pretty much why people object to me," Pansy said. "I mean, except you losers with your messed up crazy brains."

"But this guy…" Hermione wasn't sure what she was asking.

"He told me he's heard guys twice my age say things when they think they're cornered and going to die. People say things when they're scared." She clenched her jaw. "Not that anyone else seems to realize that."

"People still - "

"For the rest of my life," Pansy said. "It'll be for the rest of my life."

Hermione opened her mouth to say that of course it wouldn't be but then shut it again. Pansy noticed the movement and smiled and said with a bitter edge to her words, "No brave advice?"

"I just wish things were different," Hermione said. "Everything that happened is so wrong." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "I'm tired of feeling broken all the time. I'm tired of shaking and not even thinking 'what the hell is wrong with me' but just going 'oh, it's this again'. I'm tired of people hating me for Draco and I'm tired of Draco hating himself and I'm tired of Molly Weasley and snide comments and I'm just tired of everything." She drew in a shaking breath. "I miss my parents so much." She began to cry. "I just want to go home and have everything be okay again."

"You can't," said Susan. "There's no home left to go to."

"I know," Hermione said, her wet face pressed into her trousers. "I know."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I send you hearts._**


	86. Chapter 86 (DADA Class)

Molly Weasley handed back their essays and asked, "Does anyone have any questions before we move on?"

She clearly didn't expect anyone to ask anything. The seventh years were too intimidated by the woman who'd taken down one of the darkest witches in recorded history to speak up, Ginny spent most of the class slumped down in her chair trying to avoid notice, and most of the eighth years considered this more a pro-forma class to be taken so they could write their N.E.W.T. in the subject. They had enough hands-on experience to not want to know more.

When Neville raised his hand, however, Professor Weasley looked pleased and said, her voice warm and encouraging, "Yes, Mr. Longbottom?"

"I had a question about my mark," he said, standing up. "You've noted on my essay that it's 'excellent work' and given me the highest possible grade."

"Yes," Molly Weasley said. "It's insightful, well-researched and went considerably above and beyond the criteria in the rubric. You should be very proud of the work you did on that."

"It's just," Neville said, reaching over and tweaking Hermione's essay off her desk, "you only gave Hermione a check mark."

"How is that relevant?" the woman asked, picking up papers from her own desk and preparing to give the day's lecture.

"I copied Hermione's essay," Neville said. "They are, word for word, exactly the same."

Every student in the room turned to look at the man standing there, his cardigan visible under his student robes and his scarred face set in a look of stubborn determination. In the silence he reached over and picked up Theodore's essay as well. "You also gave Theodore a check," he said, "and the second paragraph is a detailed analysis of a Yank rock band." Neville glanced down at the parchment. "Theodore feels their use of discordant notes is overdone but they have talent and should stop trying so hard to push the musical envelope." He looked at Molly Weasley. "Are you even reading all of these?"

"Clearly, Mr. Nott's essay should have received a check-minus," Molly Weasley said. "I'll be sure to make that correction in my grading records. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Longbottom. Now please sit down so we can - "

"No," he said. The word was quiet but steady. "You're biased and that's not fair."

"Sit _down_ , Mr. Longbottom."

"No," he said again. "Professor, you can't do this. You're a _Gryffindor_. This isn't who we are."

"If you will not sit down you will get a detention."

"No," Neville said. "Not until you admit you didn't read the essays of the students you don't like. Not until you admit what's going on here is unfair."

"I will see you Saturday afternoon." Molly Weasley was nearly quivering with rage at his insubordination. "I will grade this class how I see fit, Mr. Longbottom. If you so object to your grade I will give you both 0s for cheating as copying work is strictly forbidden. Now _sit down_."

"Did you read her essay?" Neville said again.

"Neville," Hermione hissed. "You do not have to do this."

He turned to her and said, his voice serious, "I do, though. This is wrong. It may not be Alecto Carrow level wrong, but it's still not okay."

Molly Weasey was sputtering. "How dare you compare me to - "

Neville held a hand up. "She hated Muggle-borns. You hate Slytherins and anyone who consorts to closely with them." He looked over at Theodore as he handed the man back his essay. "You might as well start hating me, too, Professor."

"Sit down."

Neville shook his head. "I am going to go talk to Headmistress McGonagall," he said. "I'm going to show her my essay and Hermione's essay and admit I copied it and see what she has to say." He gathered his things and walked out of the classroom. When the door closed behind him the whole class seemed to sag and turned as one to look at the angry woman at the front of the room.

"Miss Granger," she said. "You will also have detention on Saturday for cheating on your essay and I will change your mark to reflect your misconduct. Now let us move on to the next topic on the syllabus. Who can name one of the five most influential Dark wizards in British history and explain who defeated him and what method was used?"

Hermione got up and followed Neville out.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy Birthday, Anda!_**


	87. Chapter 87 (Meeting with McGonagall)

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall left Neville Longbottom sitting outside her office until his heels had well and truly cooled, until Hermione Granger was similarly cooled off, until she was ready to deal with this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts staffing problem.

She poured herself a cup of tea, spiked it with a little something she kept in her bottom drawer, and ran through the same litany she'd used to talk herself into hiring Molly Weasley in the first place. Yes, she was traumatized by the war and the loss of her son, as traumatized as everyone else and, yes, she had a history of closing people out she felt had somehow threatened her family. Witness the way she'd initially been horrible to that dear, sweet Fleur girl whose only sins had been being French and pretty. But there was no one else. No one wanted to even send their children to Hogwarts, much less spend all day here teaching, and Molly was good at managing youngsters and organized enough to get them all through the curriculum - Merlin, the woman was actually writing a unified curriculum for the first time in hundreds of years that aligned with Ministry standards and didn't rely on random people spouting off about their pet hobby horse - and Minerva had hoped, really hoped, that would be enough.

Neville Longbottom's outrage at Molly's lack of fairness was both commendable and really, really inconvenient. Headache inducing, even.

Minerva sighed, took a sip from her cup, and let the children - the adults - in.

They sat and she let them marinate in their chairs in silence until they both squirmed a little. "I understand you have some concerns about Professor Weasley's grading system," Minerva said.

Neville nodded and then let loose a torrent. It was unfair. She'd been unfair all year. She excluded the Slytherins from class discussions. She didn't acknowledge they were even in the room. She wasn't reading their assignments.

When he ran down like a clockwork toy that needed winding, Minerva McGonagall pursed her lips and said, "I am aware Molly Weasley has not been wholly impartial." When Neville opened his mouth to start up again she held up a hand. "She is better with the younger students, no matter what House they are in. The only people she is… less than professional… with are the seventh and eighth year Slytherins and Miss Granger. The people who are most like the ones responsible for the loss of her son in her mind."

"That's - " Neville began but stopped at the look on the Headmistress' face.

"I realize it is unfair," Minerva said, "and so I am open to suggestions on how you would like me to address the problem. With the exception of how she treats this small handful of students, Professor Weasley has proved to be an excellent addition to the staff. For the first time in years we have a Defense teacher who is actually teaching the material. I have every reason to believe O.W.L. scores will reflect this. Hundreds of students benefit by having her here. A handful do not. And, as you consider your suggestions on how I solve this conundrum, bear in mind that there is nobody else to take her place." She smiled at them. "I have some ideas for next year but they will be impossible to implement until then."

"So you're telling me we should just endure it," Hermione said, the bitterness of that seeming to sit like ashes in her mouth. "For the greater good and all that."

Minerva flinched at the phrasing. "I simply want you to keep the full scope of the problem in mind while you come up with solutions," she said.

Hermione hesitated. "Could we do an independent study," she asked at last. "I realize that traditionally one isn't allowed to write N.E.W.T. for the subject if one hasn't… but maybe you could make an exception?"

Minerva McGonagall hoped her sigh of relief wasn't audible to the students in front of her. "You do have some experience in that area," she said. "I will have Professor Weasley forward you her syllabus for the entire year so you can review it as well as the list of topics that might be covered on the N.E.W.T. exam. Perhaps you will have some edits to the curriculum you'd like to make."

"It's still not fair," Neville said mulishly, his jaw thrust out. "She shouldn't get to treat people like that."

Minerva sighed as she looked at him. Sometimes it was hard to remember that these warriors were also still children. "Oh, Mr. Longbottom, what on earth gave you the impression that life was fair?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, lovely, lovely readers (the best readers in all of fandom,really). This fic reached 8,000 reviews yesterday which is amazing and if I could send you all cookies I would._**


	88. Chapter 88

Draco and Ginny laughed as, breathing hard, they came in off the pitch after another night of one-on-one Snitch hunting in the darkness. Ginny had managed to avoid injury despite flying at the Snitch with such intensity he'd expected her to crash into the very sky. "You're a menace," he said now as they stood inside the castle door, stripping off layers until they were both down to sweat-soaked cotton shirts and trousers. "Some night you're going to get really hurt."

She shrugged. "Probably not," she said.

"This thing," Draco said, "this thing where you're so unstoppable on a broom… is that because of him?"

"Tom?" Ginny asked. Draco's face must have registered his shock because she laughed. "The rest of you met him as a snake-faced, evil monster but he was just Tom to me for months so that's still how I think of him most of the time." The line of her mouth grew hard. "Just Tom, who I trusted."

"Was it bad?" Draco asked quietly.

She studied him for a long moment before she said, "Yeah, it was bad." She sank down onto a bench at the side of the corridor and sighed. "It was… I was so embarrassed about being poor." Draco began to make a sound and she stopped him. "You don't get that. You can't. It's okay. We weren't starvation poor or anything, but we were hand-me-down robes and used textbooks poor. Still are. It's hard enough to be a little girl at school for the first time but other kids say things. Kids are mean."

He must have looked guilty because she smiled and reached a hand out to touch his arm and he sat next to her on the bench. "Not just you," she said. "I know you like to think you're special, like you were the only bully at Hogwarts, but, trust me, Gryffindor Tower had its share of girls who could dismiss you with a look or with a little comment as they walked by that weren't those _boys_ robes?

"Anyway," she continued, "I had this magic book and it understood me and it was sympathetic." She laughed. "Would you believe I poured out my heart about how would I ever get popular, special Harry Potter to notice me?"

"I assume he was understanding?"

"Tom, you mean?" Ginny asked. "So understanding. _So_ understanding. Right up until the moment he pretty much possessed me and I kept losing time and I thought I was crazy. And guess who reassured me?"

"Tom," Draco said.

"Right." She laced her fingers though his and he squeezed. "He was charming and caring and wonderful right up until the moment all he wanted to do was own me and he was inside my head and there was nothing I could do about it." Her voice faltered a little. "He wasn't quite as charming then."

"Yeah," Draco said.

"Did he ever…?" she trailed off.

"Yeah," Draco said. "I'm really great at Occlumency for a reason. He liked to pry." He shuddered. "It was like having a snail slide through your thoughts leaving a trail of slime behind him."

"Like having him read your diary," Ginny said softly, "and then make sure you knew how very, very pathetic he thought you were."

"He despised everyone," Draco said. "He liked to let you feel how much he thought you were just… nothing. How he'd step on you just for the pleasure he'd take in the sound of your bones breaking."

"No one understands," Ginny said. "Harry, a little, but Tom respected Harry in some way that - "

"The rest of us were nothing, but Potter was an adversary," Draco agreed. "It probably felt different." He squeezed her hand again and she leaned over so her head rested on his shoulder.

They sat there for a long time until Ginny said, "They blamed me. My whole family. It was worse than not understanding; it was… it was all my fault. No one ever asked again how I was. It was like they wanted to just pretend it never happened. Even Harry forgot."

"I'm sorry," Draco said. "I know it wasn't the same for me, but if you ever want to talk about it - "

"Thanks," she said. "It's nice to know someone gets it, at least a little."

Draco nodded. "It's not that I wish Hermione understood, because I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but," he hesitated and the said, "It's just nice to be able to talk about it when I know you won't get that look of horror in your eyes."

"Our special bond," Ginny said.

"Lucky us." Draco let go of her hand and stood up. "I want a shower. See you later?"

Ginny nodded at him and watched him gather up his stripped layers and his broom and walk back to the Slytherin dungeon as she sat on the bench, remembering. Some day, she thought, he mother would find out about this friendship and wouldn't that be delightful. She shrugged as she stood to walk up to her own dorm. There was no one else who really understood. No one. Her mother - all her family - could learn to live with the knowledge she and Draco Malfoy had something in common. She pursed her lips bitterly as she climbed the stairs. Maybe if they'd cared when she was eleven and twelve she'd be more interested in listening to their sure to be shrill opinions on her connection to Draco. As it was, they could all bugger off.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I think yesterday's chapter wins for the angriest I've ever made readers so, after all that, why not a little Drinny. :)_**


	89. Chapter 89

Neville and Hermione walked into the Dark Arts classroom for their detention on Saturday, expecting to see Molly Weasley waiting to hand out some kind of manual labor to penalize them for what she surely considered their cheek. Instead they were greeted by an annoyed looking Pomona Spout. As the Herbology professor walked them to the greenhouses she expressed some opinions that, in a perfect world, she probably would not have shared with students. Pomona, however, didn't feel the eighth years should be treated as students, not exactly, and Neville was one of her favorites. Plants loved Neville. Drooping dahlias perked up when he walked by. Rusty roses cleared up at his touch. Even mint pulled its roots in and hesitated in its quest for dirt domination when he was near. Neville, in Pomona's opinion, could do no wrong. She'd already offered him an internship for the following year and she was sure he'd accept.

She was firmly of the opinion he'd been misSorted. Only fear of his domineering grandmother - a woman who could have used a good slap upside her hatted head - had, to Pomona Spout's way of thinking, kept him out of Hufflepuff where he belonged. That he'd confronted that narrow-minded harpy Molly Weasley over her unfair treatment of his fellows merely confirmed her opinion that he was a badger at heart and, while she'd never favored students in her own House as that would not be fair, she was tempted to make an exception just this once.

Instead she set them both to repotting some cantankerous herbs, told them to call her if they needed anything, and suggested they have the house elves send over some sandwiches if they hadn't finished by lunch, and then disappeared back into the castle staff room. That they were trusted to stay until the work was done, unsupervised, went without saying.

It was the least punitive detention she'd been able to think of that didn't technically undermine her colleague and she really did need those plants taken care of.

Neville found a pair of clean gloves for Hermione, pulled his own off the shelf, and they began to work in companionable silence. Hermione had no especial knack for Herbology but where native talent had run short she had made up the difference with diligence; Neville even admired her technique at one point.

"Darn things tried to bite me one year," she said, looking at the toothy leaves on the herb in her hand with disdain. "Didn't you?"

The plant tried to reach out toward her skin and take a bit of its own, but she already had it popped into a larger container and was scooping handfuls of loose soil into the pot and the plant was distracted.

"So," she said, deftly pulling another plant from its starter pot and sliding it into its new home. "Theodore."

"So," Neville said. "Malfoy."

"Touché," Hermione said.

"I'll get a Howler when my gran finds out," Neville said, making a face. "That'll be unpleasant." Hermione nodded. She doubted Neville's notorious gran would be pleased by either the gender or the identity of Neville's maybe significant other.

"I sometimes wonder if his mother might try to poison my tea," Hermione said, thinking of Narcissa Malfoy and her insincere pleasantries. "I think she has me pegged as the 'acceptable for now but be a dear boy and find an appropriate wife' girlfriend."

"And you're not leaving?" Neville asked.

Hermione shook her head. "Not ever," she said.

"You two moved a bit fast," Neville commented as he plucked another plant free and held it so it couldn't get to him. "It's only been a few months and you're already…" He didn't finish the sentence.

"It's just easy," Hermione said softly. "Everything with him is easy. I loved Ron but it was always hard, always... I was jealous. He was jealous. It was just always... hard. With Draco, I feel like he gets me. Every smile, every arrogant roll of his eyes just feels like something we share. I can't imagine being jealous the way I was with Ron... that's just... I'm sorry. I'm not sure how to talk about it. He's just right. He's that mythical one."

"That sounds nice," Neville said. "Being that sure I mean."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Sorry for the late post. I have some kind low-grade stomach thing going on and I'm wan and droopy and occasional beset with short but intense bouts of rather unpleasant pain._**

 ** _In my mad quest to write one story for every major dramione trope, I've started posting the one for slave!hermione. It's called "Madness in Love." The whole thing is rough drafted and will break into 4 or 5 chapters._**


	90. Chapter 90 (Chanukah: 1 of 3)

Fall passes every year and it passed that year. The last flowers died and no one could pretend that it was warm enough to not need a winter cloak if you went outside and the air began to have the bite that promised snow, and soon. November came to its inevitable end and students began pairing off for the Yule Ball in earnest, shopping trips were planned, dresses arrived via owl post.

The warmth of Gryffindor Tower became more desirable than the cool greens of the Slytherin common room and, ignoring the occasional huffs and grumbles from members of the House who felt their space was invaded by the green and yellow and blue tied interlopers, many of the eighth years took to lounging about on the overstuffed couches on long, Saturday afternoons. This was how, on December 12th, they ended up in front of a fire bandying about ideas for what was missing from the Defense curriculum that might be practically useful ("I mean, really," Pansy said, "Not that I'm in your stupid class but how much does a person really need to know about poisonous plants? Too much Herbology, in my opinion - sorry Neville - and not enough 'how to not get turned into an Inferi'.") and what was just esoteric knowledge when Hannah inclined her head toward little Sarida, one of Draco's shadows, who was sniffling as she wrote what looked to be an essay on Transfiguration in a neat hand.

Draco leaned over. "Sari," he said, "What's the matter? Is someone giving you a hard time about something?"

She wiped at her eyes and muttered that it was nothing. Draco snorted rudely and she finally said, "It's just that I missed Rosh HaShanah and I missed Yom Kippur and no one will even give me classes off because… it's Shabbat I'm not even supposed to do _anything_ today and I'm writing this essay and… and… and it's Chanukah this week and it's not even a big deal, not really, it's not like I can't work during that, but I don't even have a dreidel and… I miss _everything_. Last year was so awful because of _them_ so I didn't… but this year I just miss _everything_."

Hannah blinked at the outburst and reached out a sympathetic hand but it was practical, pragmatic, rude Pansy who said, "What the fuck is Rosh HaShanah?"

"Merlin, Pansy," Neville muttered. "Language."

"She had to torture classmates last year," Pansy snapped, "I think she can handle hearing me say 'fuck'."

"It's the New Year," Sarida said, still sniffling.

"And you aren't supposed to work?"

" _Forbidden_ to work," Sarida corrected her. "It's Jewish law."

"And professors aren't giving you days off?" Pansy asked. When Sarida nodded she made a hurumphing noise and exchanged glanced with Padma. "Honestly, would it be too much to ask them to use a _little_ common sense?" she fumed.

"Just give me the list of the dates you aren't supposed to work and I'll talk to someone," Draco said. He looked over at Hermione. "Or maybe I'll make the war heroine do it."

Hermione hit him on the arm but agreed she'd go talk to McGonagall. "She owes me," she muttered under her breath.

"Now give me your quill," Pansy said, holding a hand out. At Sarida's look she said, "You aren't supposed to work today, or so you tell us, so you won't be."

Padma laughed. "Don't cross her," she advised the second-year girl. "She's mean."

"She really is," Hermione agreed. "Are you allowed to tell us about what you're missing? Or is that work?"

"I… I think so?" she said, the tone of her voice making it clear she wasn't sure. "I'm not sure whether teaching is work or not."

However, encouraged by the gathered older students Sarida began explaining the lighting of the candles and the miracle of Chanukah and, as she talked, Theo took out a rock he'd been hauling around in his bag and, though a series of multiple steps, transfigured it to a dreidel, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation at the way the little girl mocked his Hebrew lettering. "I'll have you know I am in advanced Runes," he told her, "I'm quite sure I can manage a little 'gimel'."

Pansy looked at the lopsided character. "I hope you're better at Runes," she said, "Or that N.E.W.T. score is going to be sobering."

"I am sober now," Theodore said.

"For what, two whole weeks?" Pansy asked. "Three?"

"Be nice," Hannah said.

Pansy gave her a look and Sarida laughed, happier now.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you to the nicest readers in fandom. I appreciate you so very much._**

 ** _Thanks to thelemonandthepolarbear for beta reading this chapter for cultural accuracy. Any mistakes or missteps that remain are, of course, my fault. And, as always, thanks to shayalonnie who dutifully reads every chapter and pats me on head and says nice things._**

 ** _The pinterest board for this fic has the facecast for Pansy's beau if you want to be spoiled._**

 ** _For a quick bit of dating. The second wizarding war was over in May of 1998, so this fic takes place in the 1998-99 school year. In 1999 (5759) Chanukah began on Monday, December 14th._**


	91. Chapter 91 (Chanukah: 2 of 3)

Hannah herded Sarida, Trista, and Sarah into the Hogwarts kitchens and pointed to a set of tall stools. The girls all looked around, their eyes wide, and Hermione, following the group, laughed. Three elves glared at her.

"It's so _big_ ," Sarah said in awe.

The Hogwarts kitchens had open hearths large enough to roast whole animals, walls of immaculate copper pots and whitewashed brick that, along with windows that had to be charmed but which let in sunlight as if they peered out onto the cold winter landscape, kept the room light and airy. Long wooden tables ran the length of the room and at most of them elves were preparing food for the next meal, but, at the table to which Hannah had directed the girls and where they now sat ,an elf stood, her arms crossed and an expectant look on her face.

"Explain what you mean," Hannah told Sarida. In a halting voice the girl tried to explain latkes and fried foods and the elf listened, her mouth pursed, and then summoned a cookbook that looked as if it were at least a hundred years old, flipped through the yellowing pages, and finally nodded.

"Jelly doughnuts," the elf said.

Sarah, who had looked less than enthusiastic as Sarida described pancakes made from potatoes, perked up.

One of the other elves stopped what she was doing and apparated across the room with a pop and squinted at the cookbook. She expressed what sounded like a suggestion in a language none of the girls could understand and a rapid argument ensued between the two elves that resulted in the first elf turning to the assembled students and saying, in a tone that allowed for no discussion, "You will grate." All five girls found bowls and graters in front of them and a pile of potatoes appeared in the middle of the table. "We will handle the rest."

Hermione regarded the potatoes, peelers, and graters with a dismayed frown. "We can use magic, right?" she asked.

The elf huffed and refused to speak to her but Hannah and Hermione both began trying to remember cooking spells they knew. "I should have listened more to Molly Weasley," Hermione muttered as the third potato they tried to peel flatly refused to cooperate.

Hannah snorted and said, "Give me a minute."

She took off and Hermione smiled at the three younger girls with slight awkwardness that increased when Trista asked, "Are you going to marry Draco?"

"Uh," Hermione said, looking around as if she might find an escape route or answer somewhere in the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. "Maybe?"

"You should," Sarah said. "He's so nice."

Hermione gave the girl what she hoped wasn't a grimace of embarrassed misery and said, "Let's work on the potatoes, shall we?" and grabbed a peeler.

"How did you meet?" Sarida wanted to know as she took a potato and deftly removed the peel with one incantation Hermione had never heard before. It sounded a little like 'kalef et ze

"How did you do that?" Hermione demanded. "That wasn't Latin!"

The girl grinned at her. "My mum taught me," she said, distracted from her inquiry into what most of the younger girls considered the romance of the year. "It's not a Hogwarts spell."

By the time Hannah returned with a household spell book she'd borrowed from Pansy, Sarida had taught her cohorts a spell to peel the potatoes and a spell to grate them - both wandless, a refinement that had Hermione in awe - and Sarida confused at how impressed the older girl was because _all_ basic household spells were wandless; how were you supposed to manage a household if you had to wave a stick of wood to do anything? Wandwork was for things more complicated than laundry and cooking. She didn't know that many, of course, because her mother had done most of the housework and her job had been school, but…

Hermione made the girl promise to teach her how to do everything she'd learned from her mother and was muttering about getting a Hebrew grammar and grimoire as she watched the potatoes hover above the table, spinning as they dropped their peels and then rubbing themselves against the graters with abandon.

"It's really nothing special," Sarida protested. "It's just cooking. Everyone knows how to do this!"

Hermione just crossed her arms and watched the food prepare itself and didn't say anything more.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you to Sansho who helped with the Hebrew!_**

 _ **A quick rundown of the little OCs in the fic:**_ Andrew (2nd year Gryff), Sarida (2nd year Gryff), Trista (first year Slytherin, and there's a facecast with her in her Yule Ball dress on pinterest), Sarah (first year Slytherin) plus 2 more unnamed first year Slytherin girls (who aren't in this chapter.)


	92. Chapter 92 (Chanukah: 3 of 3)

At dinner Monday night Hermione kissed Draco and then went to sit with the Gryffindors for the first time in months. She sat, however, not at the top of the table but down at the bottom with Andrew, Sarida, and the other first and second years. Ginny grinned at her from her own place where she was arguing with her teammates about Quidditch strategy.

Neville was sitting with the Slytherins.

Hermione heard some of her Housemates muttering about that, and about her.

"Does it bother you," Andrew asked quietly. At her questioning look he said, "They all judge you, and Neville, because you aren't… because you're friends with - "

"Because I'm a Death Eater lover?" she asked. He nodded and he and the other younger students, and even some of the older ones, leaned over to hear her answer in the noisy hall. She took a deep breath and said, as carefully as she could, "If someone has done a really bad thing, and they regret it, and they work to repair the harm they've done, should we hate them for the bad thing or love them for the good?"

One of the boys wrinkled his nose. "That sounds like something you'd hear in church," he objected.

"Repairing the world," Sarida said, her eyes sparkling.

"But he helped to break it," someone said.

Hermione smiled sadly. "He was afraid," she said. "And angry. And he messed up pretty badly. People have some good reasons to be angry at him and it's hard to forgive people who hurt you."

"But you did," Andrew said.

Hermione was silent for a moment as the food appeared, seeming to consider her answer. She had her plate piled high with latkes and a piece of salmon and was spooning applesauce onto the side before she spoke. "I did," she said at last. "But I can't blame them for not." She tried not to look down at her sleeve where it hid the carved word that would never wholly fade. "I'm not sure I could forgive his aunt or sit down and have dinner with her, so I understand them."

"Doesn't mean they should call you names," Sarida said.

"No," Hermione agreed, "But my friend Harry doesn't care who I date and neither does Ginny." She wanted to say, 'Or Ron' but that would be such a blatant lie she couldn't mouth the words, as much as she wished they were true. "My friends accept it and that's what matters to me."

"Why are we having doughnuts with dinner?" Andrew asked. The piles of jam doughnuts glistened from the center of the tables and though the students were dutifully eating their way through the spinach and the fish and the fried potatoes they were far more interested in the dessert.

"They're traditional," Sarida said happily, and launched into an explanation of fried food and oil that never ran out.

"I could get used to this," Andrew said.

"And after dinner we'll play dreidel," Sarida said. She looked at Hermione with her big eyes. "You are still coming, right?"

Hermione put an arm around the girl and squeezed. "Every night," she promised. "We all are. And I even have a present for you."

Sarida looked stunned.

"Don't be too excited," Hermione said with a grimace as she thought about the lumpy socks she'd charmed her needles into knitting for the girl. She'd over-ordered the red and gold yarn and now she had enough to make socks for everyone in the House - not that she planned on it - but she'd panicked and worried it wouldn't get there in time and she'd over-compensated.

By a lot.

"Just…that was really nice of you," Sarida stammered.

"She's a nice girl," Draco said. He'd come up behind her and kissed the top of her head before resting his hands on her shoulders. "Are well all set for this candle thing?"

"We are," Hermione said, tilted her head up to smile at him. "Sarida's mum sent us a spare menorah to use and we've got a box full of candles and she's going to teach us a song I think."

"Instead of bell, book and candle, it's song, dreidel and candle," Draco teased.

"Doughnut, dreidel and candle," Andrew said as he took a big bite of one of the pastries, getting raspberry jam all over his chin.

Hermione looked at the red stain and said, her eyes seeing not to register what she saw in front of her but something else entirely, "It's interesting, isn't it, how we get blinders on that make us think our way is the only way to do something. Bell, book and candle is all well and good, but what else is out there?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy Halloween!_**

 ** _If you're on tumblr, look for a Halloween creature dramione drabble I have queued up to publish at 7PM New York City time :)_**


	93. Chapter 93

Hermione wasn't looking where she was going, just considering Sarida's different assumptions about how magic worked, when she turned into the library and headed toward the Arithmancy section to a get a book she needed for an essay Professor Vector has assigned; she found Pansy tucked into a carrel where no one could see her, breathing hard. The woman had her head down and was shaking in a stance that looked all too familiar to Hermione. "Pansy?" she said hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," the woman said, not looking up. "Just swell. Go away, Granger."

Hermione ignored her and pulled up a chair. "Have you…"

"Already took it," Pansy said. "Not helping."

"Shite," Hermione said. She reached a hand over and, unsure whether she'd be welcome, began to run it in circles on Pansy's back. "What happened."

"What's fucking crazy is that nothing happened," Pansy said. "I was just sitting her and then, you know." Hermione looked around and, pulling out her wand with the hand that she wasn't using to comfort Pansy cast a quick _muffliato_.

"Yeah," Hermione said. "I do." She kept rubbing Pansy's back and they sat in silence until Hermione said, "Why kneazles?"

"I like kneazles," Pansy said. "They're fluffy and sweet and they're smart enough to not be annoying and they love you no matter what you've done." She let out a small laugh. "I'll take the love I can get, you know? Before I ran into… my friend… I had just planned on being a crazy cat lady with Millie, who, by the way, thinks I'm daft for being friends with you people. She hates Gryffindors."

Hermione sighed. "Sometimes we're pretty hatable," she said. "But so are Slytherins."

Pansy managed a small smirk. "You don't seem to hate us lately. Fucked Draco yet?"

"Pansy!" Hermione stopped rubbing in gentle circles and smacked the other girl.

"So that would be a no, then?" Pansy asked as she took another gulping breath of air. "He's about as inexperienced as they come. Trust me on this." Hermione must have looked uncomfortable because Pansy glanced at her face and managed a shaky laugh. "I don't know from personal experience, you dolt. We just all know everything about one another. Us against the world and all that." She set her head down on the wooden surface of the library carrell. "I wish Draco hadn't gone and gotten himself Marked."

"Me too," Hermione said.

"It was all just so exciting at first," Pansy said. "No one trusts you, you're all the outcasts, but this guy will make you rulers of everything." She let out a choking sob. "Draco was so angry about his dad being send to Azkaban and so proud he could be a part of this movement to restore dignity and pride and whatever crap we were all being fed. Merlin, we were all so young. And then that monster was crazy and threatening everyone and everything was awful."

Hermione began to pet Pansy's hair. "It must have been really hard," she offered. The words settled around them in the thick silence of the _muffliato_ spell as Hermione ran her hand over and over Pansy's short, brown hair. Funny to think she'd hated this girl for six years and then spared her not a single thought while they were horcrux hunting. Funnier to think they were friends now.

Pansy let out a sad little huff after a while. "You have no idea. I spent all of seventh year thinking I was going to be killed any moment. By the Carrows. By the other students. I just… I had my hand on my wand every moment I was outside my dorm. People had always sent little hexes at us, and we sent them back, but last year," she stopped and gulped again. "They weren't all little."

"I didn't realize," Hermione said. "Draco and Theo… they've never said anything."

"Well, they wouldn't," Pansy said. "You'd go all righteous and shite and that's no good." She shuddered but seemed to be regaining her equilibrium. "Greg… it wasn't all just mindless viciousness that made him really go after people when the Carrows told him to. Sometimes I wanted to too." She jerked away from Hermione's hand. "I'm fine, stupid touchy-feely Gryffindor. I don't want you messing up my hair."

"Sure," said Hermione. "Fine."

"As fine as you are."

"You're going to sell me a kneazle, right?"

Pansy looked at her. "You don't think you're getting a discount just because we're friends, do you?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I send you hearts. And they aren't even still beating._**


	94. Chapter 94

Hermione sat with her feet curled under her on Draco's bed as he proofread their Arithmancy work one more time; Theodore leaned over his shoulder, one finger on the equations. "Are you sure," Draco asked. "This is not in the book. This is the opposite of what's in the book."

"The book is wrong," Hermione said.

Theodore snorted at her placid response. "You are so sure of yourself," he said.

"I'm right," she insisted. "Look at it, it all makes sense. If you do it the way the book tells you to you end up with this weird graph that wanders all over time and, no. We do it my way."

"If you're right," Draco said, "we look brilliant."

"If you're wrong, we look like arseholes who can't follow directions," Theodore said.

"Conveniently, I'm right," Hermione said. She tipped her head to the side and began to rub at at crink in her neck.

Draco folded up their work and tucked both it and the maligned textbook away in his bag. "I can do that," he said and joined Hermione on his bed and began to knead his fingers into her skin. She held her hair forward out of his way as he massaged her neck. "I have something I need to tell you," he said.

"You've realized your true and abiding love for your roommate and we need to break up?" she asked.

Theodore groaned. "Not if he were the last man alive," he said.

"I have to go home for the holiday," Draco said.

There was a moment where Hermione seemed to stop breathing and then she said, "Of course you do. It's Christmas and you should be with your parents."

"You aren't mad?" Draco asked.

"It's fine," she said.

"You're staying here," Draco said. It wasn't a question.

Hermione shrugged and moved herself away from his hand. "Don't really have anywhere else to go," she said. "So it'll be me and the house elves and probably Susan."

"And me," Theodore said. They both looked at him and he muttered, "If I go back to Nott Manor and sit around in that big house by myself all I'll do is drink. If I stay here maybe I can get a head start on the big Runes project." Hermione looked like she was about to say something warm and supportive and Theodore narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't, Hermione," he said.

"I'll come back as soon as I can," Draco said. He sounded miserable. "The day after Christmas. I won't leave you alone the whole holiday. I just… it's a big deal. My mother used to decorate the whole Manor and she hasn't… the war and having that… so this year she's really set on making it like it was when I was little." He let out an uncomfortable laugh. "I think she might be getting me a pygmy puff as a pet though I've asked - begged - my father to keep that from happening."

"Don't kneazles eat pygmy puffs?" Theo asked.

"I don't think so," Hermione said, but she sounded not wholly sure.

"Why?" Draco asked.

"Mate," Theo said, "you're pretty much joined at the hip to a bona fide crazy cat woman. She was literally a cat. Her familiar was a cat. I'm pretty sure Pansy's going to sell her another kneazle as soon as we graduate and Nott Manor will be covered in cat hair, and, frankly, you don't want to find a beheaded pygmy puff on your pillow as a present."

"Somehow I don't think 'Don't get me a Pygmy Puff because Hermione's kneazle will just eat it' will be the best deterrent ever," Draco said.

"They're still not accepting?" Theodore asked. He sat down on the bed with the pair of them and reached a concerned hand out toward Hermione. She twitched away from it.

Draco looked unhappy. "They… no. They're making noises about after graduation how I should consider spending a year doing an old fashioned Grand Tour and meeting - "

"Appropriate girls," Hermione finished for him. "Great."

Theodore began to laugh and Hermione glared at him until he said, "Seriously, Hermione, can you _imagine_ Draco making his way across the continent and meeting appropriate girl after appropriate girl? Before you started sucking him off he - "

"Theodore!" Hermione yelped.

"Sorry," he said, looking unrepentant. "Before you started your whirlwind romance of true love unfettered and unsoiled by physical desire, is that better?"

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

"He didn't talk for days at a time," Theodore said, more seriously. "He… you know."

They all avoided looked at the drawer with Draco's knife.

"His parents are nutters if they don't realize you're the best thing that's ever happened to him." Theodore said. "And, on that note, I'm going for a walk and leaving you two crazy kids alone."

"Up to see Neville," Hermione asked. "All unfettered by desire?"

Theodore gave her a look that might best be described as 'quelling' before he left. Draco turned to Hermione and said, his smile a tad wobbly, "Alone at last."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning to the loveliest people on the internet!_**


	95. Chapter 95

Hermione licked her lips and realized her fingers were fumbling nervously with the button at the hip of her skirt.

"You know I'd never really… my parents don't get to make this decision for me," Draco said. "My going home for Christmas isn't code for 'let's break up.'"

"I know," Hermione said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "It's just hard, knowing they don't approve." She laughed a little uncomfortably. "Maybe we shouldn't… not if your family is going to resent me forever. I saw what happened to Andromeda and Teddy and… you know Sirius was… it wasn't good for him."

Draco blinked and tried to remember who Sirius was. It took a few moments before he realized she meant Sirius Black, Azkaban escapee and the murderer who apparently wasn't a murderer, was Potter's godfather, and hadn't fared well thanks to pureblood mania. "My mother isn't Walburga Black," he said, fishing around in his memory for the name of his great Aunt. "Or even her own mother."

"You're sure?" Hermione said. She'd started twisting the fabric of her uniform skirt in her hands and Draco folded his fingers over hers and coaxed her into releasing the tormented wool.

"I'm more than sure," he said. "I lo… like you a lot." He smirked a little. "You said you wanted to wait until it was warm," he added.

Hermione looked perplexed for a moment and then her eyes widened.

"I could show you how much I like you." Draco had wanted the words to sound cocky and confident and instead his voice actually squeaked at the end of them and he forced out a cough as though the embarrassing sound was because he had something in his throat and not because he was nervous. "Theodore's gone," he said.

She looked at the door and muttered, "Lock it anyway. I wouldn't put it past him to think it was funny to come back just to - "

Draco scrambled off the bed and turned the physical latch. "Done," he said. He didn't think Theodore would do that to him, not right now. In a year, absolutely, but for all his crassness Theodore was astute enough to realize now would be a bad time to play embarrass Draco. When he climbed back onto his bed Hermione had returned to twisting her skirt in her hand and he leaned forward and cupped her face with his hand and pressed his mouth to hers. She returned the kiss, slowly at first, but as time dissolved it took their nerves with it and he was nuzzling her neck as she lay back and then he was pushing up her skirt and tugging at the knickers she had on.

Black lace. He somehow hadn't expected that.

He worked them down over her legs and over her feet, suddenly grateful she'd kicked off her shoes and left her socks on his floor when they'd been solving their maths problem earlier. Getting the tiny bit of shiny fabric off over practical and warm fall shoes might have been tricky and he was already fairly sure he'd mess this up; he didn't need clothing complications.

He looked at Hermione and said, "This is okay, right?"

She nodded, her head on his pillow, and he lowered his mouth down and prayed he was a fast learner.

It wasn't as hard as Arithmancy. That was the thought that crept into his head as he darted his tongue back and forth and listened to Hermione make sounds that were a pretty effective guide on what to do. She gasped and whimpered and he kept going, hoping he'd know when to stop. Sixth and seventh year when his friends had moved on from kissing to groping to this he'd been scared to death and trying to stay alive and having the kind of relationship that might have led to anything at all like this had been impossible. Thanks to some magazines that had been passed around he was fairly sure there was an end for girls, but he wasn't sure he'd recognize it.

He did.

She went suddenly rigid and made a sound he hadn't heard yet and he was convinced he'd done something wrong, something horribly, horribly wrong, until she tweaked her hips away from him and said, "Wow," and he decided that he'd pulled the whole thing off without revealing his inexperience.

His cock was really, really hard but he wasn't sure whether he could ask her to do anything about that and, just as he was deciding he'd just wank in the shower after she left, she sat up and said, "Your turn?"

"I, yeah," he said. "That would be great. You don't have to do that, though, I mean - "

"I want to," she said.

Draco discovered that he could get trousers off really quickly when properly motivated.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Good morning! *waves at the nicest people in all of dramione fandom***_


	96. Chapter 96 (Theville Outtake)

**~ Outtake ~**

Theo hated walking up to Gryffindor Tower. He blamed it on the stairs - no wonder Neville had such great legs, having to climb these damn stairs all the time - but that wasn't the real reason. He reached for the flask without thinking and then let his hand fall back to his side in resignation. No alcohol. Draco had tracked down every last bottle he'd had stashed away and dumped them all and Hermione seemed to have found some kind of blood alcohol checking spell and he was sure she casting it on him surreptitiously over breakfast.

She was a sneaky thing. It would be irritating if it weren't so endearing and if it didn't make him much more sure she'd do just fine in the snake pit that the Malfoys called the bosom of their family.

Theo kept his mask on as a pair of red-scarfed girls passed him, making a show of how they scooted around him so they wouldn't risk the contamination of his touch. He'd find they way they acted as if he had cooties funny if it weren't about him. The damn Gryffindors just… he hated them. He could articulate that it was wrong, that it was just as bad as the way they hated him, that he had friends who were Gryffindor for the first time in his life with Ginny and Hermione. More, he was on his way to see his boyfriend, who was a Gryffindor.

He still hated them as a group.

Impulsive. Rash. They latched on to ideas they decided were noble with the fervency of a zealot and couldn't be dissuaded and the dogma they hauled out whenever they saw him was that Slytherins were evil and must be bravely resisted.

Theodore had had enough of zealotry and he didn't think much of the bravery involved in facing down schoolmates with tactics that would have embarrassed a twelve-year-old girl.

"Cooties," he muttered in disgust that covered nerves as he looked up at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"That's not the password," she said in admonition. Then she peered more closely at him. "Back again to see Neville, are you?" She adjusted her toga and said in tones that suggested she was about to veer into a long-winded monologue about some long dead lover, "Young love is such a wonderful thing. Why, I remember - "

"Basorexia," Theo said hastily.

She smiled at him. "You boys have fun now," she said as she swung open and let him pass.

The common room was filled with people who muttered as he passed by them without speaking. He wondered, bitterly, if they would be quite as displeased with his presence if he were here to visit some tedious seventh year girl.

Probably, if he were being honest.

He knocked on Neville's door and then pushed it open to see the other man seated on his bed reading a book on North American plant life. "Hey," Theo said, closing the door behind him with an almost inaudible click. "You free?"

Neville put a bookmark between the pages and set the volume aside. "Sure," he said. "You gonna sit down?"

Theo pushed his shoes off one at a time and joined the other man. "Missed you," he said, taking Neville's face between his hands and dropping a kiss at the side of his mouth.

Neville slipped a hand of his own behind Theo's neck and pulled the man closer. "Missed you too," he said. They kissed, an achingly slow exchange.

"Does this door lock?" Theo asked at last.

Neville snatched his wand off the table and waved it. "Locked, warded, silenced," he said huskily.

Theo reached a hand down to the button on Neville's trousers and with a deft flick of his wrist unfastened it. "This is all right?" he asked, though the not-insubstantial erection pushing against the confines of Neville's pants suggested the answer. Still, it was better to check.

Neville nodded. "If it's all right with you," he said.

"More than all right," Theo said as he struggled to get the trousers down and pants off all without seeming like a graceless, overeager arse. He liked to not seem like a fool whenever possible in all areas of life and Neville made him feel like he was stumbling around with an adolescent crush much too often. It scared him how much he wanted this to work and that fear made him awkward and clumsy. By the time he had his mouth on Neville, however, it was pretty clear by the sounds the other man was making that any fumbling Theo had done in getting him undressed was not important.

Merlin, Theo thought, he liked Neville so much. The man was smart and brave and self-effacing and so hot it almost hurt to look at him and think that this man wanted him back seemed too good to be true.

He wanted this to work so much.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - I had truly meant for this whole fic to be only from the perspective of either Draco or Hermione but there were so many requests for a Theo/Neville outtake that I broke under pressure. I hope you enjoyed it :)**_


	97. Chapter 97

Pansy had spent the day with her shoulders thrown back and her chin held up. Everything was so weird in Muggle London. There were too many people, and things moved so quickly, and she didn't know how to get anywhere. They'd stopped for ice creams and she'd stared at prices on the menu with no idea what any of them meant.

"I've got it," Hermione had said and Pansy had kept a brittle smile on her face even when Hermione had looked at her and said, "You okay?" in a tone that clearly meant, "Are you about to have an attack?"

"I'm fine," Pansy had said. "You worry too much."

Even the clothing stores had been overwhelming. There was just more of everything. Hermione had whispered price conversions on her ear as she picked out a blue dress for the Yule Ball that would have made her mother have spasms and they helped Trista - whose wide eyes hadn't stopped staring at everything since they'd arrived - find a little green satin dress with a pleated neckline and a wide belt.

"She needs shoes to go with that," Pansy had declared, taking refuge in fashion. She knew about robes, whatever Muggles called them. Hermione had nodded and the saleswoman had looked pleased and low heeled sandals in a matching green had been fetched and declared perfect.

When they finally flooed back to Hogwarts Pansy let out a breath. "That was interesting," she said.

"There were so many people," Trista said. She looked down the hall in the direction of the dungeons. "Can I go show everyone the dress?'

"Shoo," Pansy said, waving her hand at the girl. "Just don't get it dirty!"

"I won't," Trista promised as she ran off, her shopping bag clutched in her hand.

"She's going to look so cute," Hermione said.

"I can't believe her mother let us take her into Muggle London to go shopping," Pansy said. "When you got permission for that I thought you were kidding." Hermione looked momentarily guilty and Pansy spotted the expression before it disappeared. "You didn't tell her, did you?" she asked.

"I just said we were going shopping and she didn't seem to have anything appropriate and we'd be happy to take her along with us," Hermione said. "I might have left out _where_ we were going shopping."

Pansy laughed. The sound was still a little unsteady. "You're trouble," she said.

"Are you - "

"I'm fine," Pansy said. "Give it a rest, Granger." She peered down into her bag and regarded the slip dress with pleasure. "If this is what you can buy in Muggle London, I'll learn how to handle it."

"Why blue?" Hermione asked. "I'd have expected lots of green."

Pansy sniffed. "Green makes me look sallow," she said. "I have to wear it often enough; the ties, the scarves, the hats. It's all green all the time, and all right near my face. I look much better in other colours."

The stood in the hall and looked at one another. Permission to shop had been easy enough to get. McGonagall had been far too obvious in her satisfaction that they were planning to go together. "I think we can give you eighth year girls a day pass to London if you would like," she said. "You aren't quite conventional students anymore." Even permission to bring Trista had been simple enough once the girl's mother had agreed. Now, however, after spending the day together, they were't sure how to gracefully separate.

"It must have been hard," Pansy said abruptly.

Hermione didn't pretend not to understand. "At least it was a controlled environment," she said. "School is, to some extent, school, whether you're studying Potions or Chemistry." She shrugged. "Getting dumped into Diagon Alley and told to go shopping on my own would have been more difficult."

"Still," Pansy said. "Things were different, things I would never have expected to be different. Not just the money. It was just… people moved differently. The manners were strange." She crossed her arms and held onto herself. "It would be hard to be told I had to move to that world and fit in. I don't know how well I'd do."

"Your guy friend isn't a Muggle-born, is he?" Hermione asked, trying to follow why Pansy cared about this. She must have been off because the girl looked amused by the conjecture.

"No," she said. "Not at all."

"I think I did okay in managing the cultural transition," Hermione said. "I mean. I'm best friends with the Chosen One and dating a Malfoy."

Pansy laughed at that and picked her bag up. "Yeah," she said. "Pity your taste in clothes is still so piss-poor. If I hadn't been there to save you today you'd have ended up with that pink monstrosity."

Hermione pretended be upset. "It was a very pretty dress," she said.

"If you were twelve, yes," Pansy agreed. "Though being twelve would make dating Draco a little creepy."

"Well, thanks for your help," Hermione said, trying to stay offended and laughing anyway.

"Anytime," said Pansy.

"Right," said Hermione. "Anytime."

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, delightful and fabulous people. This hit 9,000 reviews sometime while I slept which is mind boggling. Thank you so much!_**

 ** _The dresses are all pinned on Pinterest and tumblr remains the best way to get questions/requests to me :)_**


	98. Chapter 98

"You look beautiful."

Draco had walked up to Gryffindor Tower to pick up Hermione and walk her down to the Yule Ball as if it were a proper date and not a school dance in a boarding school. She smiled at him, nerves in her eyes as she smoothed the skirt over her hips. "Pansy helped me pick it out. It's… I don't really do dresses very well. I'd rather just be in a pair of trousers and - "

"You look beautiful," he said again. She did, too. The dress was simple enough, neither long nor short with a full skirt that would flare out if he twirled her on the dance floor; he thought the grey-blue color suited her. Some kind of lace overlay covered her shoulders but left peek-a-boo gaps at her cleavage he had to fight to keep his eyes from lingering on.

It bared the scar on her arm. He didn't let himself look at it and fought the urge to tug at the sleeves of his own shirt to make sure they covered his own.

"I'm glad you think so," she said, still sounding unsure. "You look great, of course."

Draco shrugged. He'd been shoved into dress robes his entire life for one event or another and didn't pay them much mind. He offered her his hand and smiled at the peacock Padma must have drawn for her peeking up at him from her palm. "If you keep painting those birds on yourself people might start to think you have a crush on me," he said.

"They'd be right," she said. He tightened his grip on her hand. This still felt unreal and every day he expected to wake up and realize he was in his dorm room bed alone, scared, and with no one to whom he could turn without endangering them too. "I'm going to miss you," she said.

"I'll be back the day after Christmas," he said.

She just glanced away and he stopped walking and pulled on her hand. "I'm coming back," he said.

"Let's just enjoy the dance tonight," she said. "The Heads worked hard on it, I'm sure, and there's going to be - "

"There's going to be the most beautiful girl at the school all dressed up and she happens to be my girlfriend," Draco said. "I'm a selfish bastard; that's all I care about."

Well, maybe that and seeing if he could get her undressed a little later. He and Theo already had it worked out; Theo would go to Neville's room and he'd bring Hermione back to theirs. He'd practiced the contraceptive charm all afternoon while Theo had laid back on his bed and laughed. "You know what's great about being gay?" he'd asked. "No surprise heirs."

Hermione pulled him back into walking. "Well, I care about having this work out," she said. "I hope no one does anything stupid or picks a fight or something."

"It will be fine," he said. "We'll drink the punch and dance and you'll look beautiful and I'll look reasonably good and - "'

"You look a lot better than reasonably good," Hermione said. "Vain. Begging for compliments."

"Well," Draco said. "As I recall you once told me you didn't find the pale colour of my eyes and skin wholly repulsive."

She stopped again and lay the peacock-painted hand along the side of his pale face. "I have," she said, "learned to find your appearance more pleasing that that of any other man of my acquaintance."

Draco flushed and said, trying to cover his pleasure at her words, "You sound like you're quoting something."

"I am, a little," she admitted. "But it's still true." She took a deep breath. "You, pale and angular with eyes that flash from haunted to mocking in a moment, you, who teaches little girls to fly and who takes joy in complex Arithmancy, you are, for me, the measuring stick against which everyone else falls short and you always will be."

He turned into her palm and pressed his lips against her skin. "No one is your equal," he said, the words almost muffled. "And no one ever will be."

"Dance with me?" she asked.

He nodded. "Always," he said.

They stood, unsure what to say until Hermione added with a nervous laugh, "I'm not a very good dancer. I'll probably step on your toes."

"I've lived through worse," Draco said.

She stared at him in shock for a moment and then burst out laughing.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - If you cannot name the novel Hermione is loosely quoting I might cry. Also, hello lovelies. Good morning. Dramione for you._**


	99. Chapter 99

Hermione hesitated at the doorway to the hall that had been transformed into a dimly lit ballroom with fairy lights dancing up near the ceiling and boughs of greenery draped over every available surface. A sullen-looking prefect stood guard over the punch bowl and a bunch of first years were chasing each other around the edges of the room. Draco nudged her and pointed and she followed his gesture and grinned. Andy was standing on the edge of the dance floor, shifting from one foot to another, as he talked to Trista.

"I like her dress," Draco said. "Pansy said you got it when you took both of them into Muggle London."

"That was an adventure," Hermione murmured, smiling at the girl as she stood there with her hands clasped in front of her.

"Maybe you'll take me some day?" Draco asked. She turned and looked at him in shock and he gave her a wistful look. "I've never been, you know," he said. "Not quite the done thing and all." He looked down at his shoes and muttered, "I don't even know how the money works. It's weird to think there's this parallel world I can't… I don't like not being able to - "

"I'd be happy to take you," Hermione said. She leaned her head into his shoulder. "You might not like it, though. I think Pansy was pretty uncomfortable."

Draco shrugged and then gave her a bit of a smirk. "Dance with me?"

"No one else is on the dance floor yet," Hermione said, feeling a wave of anxiety wash over her. "I'm not a good dancer… Draco…"

"Trust me," he said. "It'll be nicer before it gets crowded."

She let him pull her out to the floor and tuck a hand at her waist. "No waltzing," he whispered into her ear. "I'd like to throw all those dreadful years of mandatory dance lessons away and just use this as an excuse to wrap myself around you in public."

"Stand and sway I can do," she said with relief and a laugh and she rested her head against his shoulder and inhaled the scent of him. Emboldened by not having to be first, Andy tugged a shy and giggling Trista to the floor and soon there were too many couples to do more than stand, pressed against a partner in a way that probably would have scandalized half the portraits in the castle.

Pansy and Padma were holding court near one of the windows, spinning elaborate stories about romances they had not quite had to a group of wide-eyed girls. "They look too young to even be firsties," Draco whispered to Hermione after the left the dance floor. He'd fetched her a glass of punch and they were working their way across the room with the plan of lounging near the safety of their friends.

There had been more than one hiss of 'Death Eater' and 'Death Eater lover' directed at them while they'd danced. Draco had gotten whiter and whiter with each slur until Hermione had claimed she was thirsty and tired and needed to rest. He'd grabbed the excuse with gratitude and spotted the pair of fellow eighth years and suggested they go over and see them.

Hermione eyed the group of girls gathered around Pansy and Padma. "I think some of them are second years," she said. "I recognize Sari." As the approached they heard one of the girls tell Padma she looked pretty in her dress. "I thought you were pregnant," the girl said.

"You thought what?" Padma sounded horrified. "Why?"

"Well, you're always wearing such loose clothing," the girl said. "That's what my mum did when she was pregnant with my baby brother. But you're much too thin to be pregnant."

"No, I'm not pregnant," Padma said, nipping that rumor in the bud. "I want to go start an internship at St. Mungo's after graduation. I plan to specialize in treating the long term affects of Dark curses. I can't have a baby right now." She glanced at Pansy and laughed. "I won't even have time for a boyfriend, much less a baby."

"Babies take all your mum's time," the girl said, apparently still disgruntled about her baby brother. "And they're loud."

"No babies," Draco agreed. All the girls turned and looked at him and there were a few actual squeals of delight. The Slytherin girls, who had him as a flying teacher, were proudly possessive that the handsome Slytherin was 'theirs' and made a point of making sure the girls from other Houses knew they couldn't have him.

"How is it out there," Pansy asked as Hermione left Draco to his junior admirers and leaned against the wall next to her.

"Let's just say we're a lot more popular with the pre-pubescent crowd than we are with our peers." Hermione muttered.

Pansy made a sound that hovered between anger and resignation and then nudged Hermione and pointed toward the door. "I think your Chosen One friend is here," she said.

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning!_**


	100. Chapter 100

Harry and Ginny had slipped in to the ballroom while no one was looking and were swaying on the floor. When Harry caught Hermione's eye he waved and the pair of them began weaving their way through the crowd to join the slowly growing group of eighth years. One of the photographers on hand documenting the event to prove Hogwarts was back up and running and a safe place to send children spotted him and made her way across the room as well.

"Mr. Potter, Harry Potter," she said, flushed and looking like she was meeting a personal hero. "I'm sorry, I hate to be a bother, but can I take a shot of you and your girlfriend for the article? People love to know - "

"No," Harry said, looping his arm around Hermione, "But you can get one of me and my good friends Hermione and Draco."

Draco narrowed his eyes and looked at his long-hated rival. Hermione met Harry's glance with a knowing one of her own. "That'd be great," she said. "Draco, get over here and squish in so she can get all four of us in one frame."

Draco and Harry stood side by side, Ginny and Hermione flanking them. Hermione jabbed Draco in the ribs and he put a pleased smile on his face and pushed in tighter so he was pressed right up against Harry Potter's side. Hermione leaned her head against his shoulder and beamed into the camera as the flustered photographer took several shots.

"I didn't realize you were such good friends," she said, letting the camera drop so it hung from the leather strap around her neck while she fumbled for a notepad and quill. No Rita Skeeter, this one, Hermione thought to herself. This one was inexperienced and nervous and thrilled to have stumbled onto copy that she hadn't expected and would take at face value.

"Oh, yes," Harry said. "I mean, Hermione and I have been been friends since, what? First year?"

"First year," she agreed.

"And you can't really fight a war - you knew Draco had pretty much changed sides by the end, right? Refused to give us up to Voldemort?"

The woman flinched at the name but nodded eagerly as she took notes as fast as she could. "You said that in his trial," she said.

"It's true," Harry said. "I was just thrilled when he and Hermione got together." He clapped Draco on the back. "He's like the brother I never had."

"A brother?" the photographer-turned-reporter almost squeaked.

Harry gave her his best serious expression. "There are things only people who spent their childhood being used as tools in war can understand. Draco and I may have been on opposite sides for much of it but our experiences were, in many ways, mirrors of one another." He smiled. "But if you've gotten your shot, could we have a little private time to catch up? I'm so busy at Auror training I never get to see my friends so this is a special night for me."

The reporter burbled thanks and 'of course's and backed away, her eyes wide as she contemplated the story - with a photograph - that was hers, all hers.

"Like a brother?" Draco said in disbelief as he stepped back from Harry Potter.

"People don't always like their family," Harry said with a smirk and then he frowned and turned to Hermione. "Ginny's told me some of what's going on. You okay, Hermione?"

"It's fine," she said. "People just can't let things go and he's here so he's an easy target."

"And that makes you a target," Harry said. He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't like it."

"Well, me either but you know how Hogwarts is," Hermione said.

"Do you want me to speak to Molly?" Harry asked. "I know - "

"This isn't her thinking I'm dating you like it was years ago," Hermione said. "This is her grieving Fred. I don't think you can make that better."

"And her being upset about you and Ron," Harry said. "Merlin, Hermione, I'm so sorry about him. He's just… he's not thinking straight. He's so angry about the war and about Fred and somehow that's all gotten focused on resenting you." He turned to Draco and crossed his arms and let his eyes travel up and down the slender blond man.

"If your taste runs that way you'll have to approach Theodore," Draco drawled. "You're not my type."

"C'mon, brother," Harry said. "Let's go have a very public glass of punch together." He glanced down at the scar on his hand that read 'I must not tell lies' and sighed. "When did life get so complicated?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - 100 chapters! I can't believe I've been doing daily updates for 3ish months! Confetti! Celebrations! Thank you, lovely readers. You make it fun!_**


	101. Chapter 101

After Harry had hauled Draco off to make an untrue, public point that they were friends, the four girls left behind eyed the pair in mostly muted amusement. The pair of them stood by the punch bowl, chummy as blokes who'd been chums since they were in nappies. Hermione snorted. "He's gotten better at managing the press," she muttered. "And I guess you can't be Narcissa Malfoy's son and not learn a few things."

"I did tell Harry you were having problems," Ginny murmured, "And that my mum was being difficult."

"I'd mentioned it a bit in an owl," Hermione said. "Didn't go into details."

Ginny looked momentarily uncomfortable. "I might have given him a few ideas on how to handle the situation," she admitted. "I was just teased so relentlessly by Fr…. by my brothers that I got good at coping. I hope - "

"No," Hermione said softly. "It was great." She added with a slight grin, "Seeing the pair of them shoved up against one another trying not to recoil was worth dealing with the reporter."

"It's wrong of me to take this much pleasure in their mutual discomfort, isn't it?" Ginny asked in agreement. "They're both forcing such pleasant smiles to their faces and you know they just want to start some stupid tussle."

"Not wrong at all," Pansy said with openly malicious glee.

Ginny flicked a glance at her. "Forgive me if you aren't the person I turn to for lessons on being nice. I'll check with one of the Puffs for that."

"Where is Hannah, anyway?" Hermione asked.

Pansy, who's eyes were on Harry Potter, shrugged. "Wasn't my turn to watch her."

"She's dancing with some Hufflepuff I don't know," Padma said, pointing out the woman on the dance floor. Hannah had on a long red dress with a keyhole neckline and a wide gold belt made out of lace and she was standing in the very polite grip of a nervous looking boy a full head shorter than she was.

"Red and gold?" Hermione asked. "Gryffindor colours?"

"We don't all colour-code ourselves anymore," Pansy pointed out but her voice sounded a little sad. "I'm sure she just thought the dress was pretty."

"It is," Padma said. All three women looked, without meaning to, toward Neville. He and Theodore weren't dancing. They were standing by a doorway, mostly in the shadows, and Neville had his hands clutched around a glass of punch. This was their first public appearance as anything at all like a couple and, based on her own experience on the dance floor, Hermione had a bad feeling Neville had gotten his own share of comments muttered as people walked by.

"How about Susan?" Hermione asked, not wanting to think too closely about how nervous Neville looked.

Pansy sighed. "Already gone," she said.

"New guy?" Hermione asked.

"I have no idea. I'm going to have to start tagging them like research animals," Pansy said. "I can't keep track of them anymore." The looked at one another and Pansy mimed holding Padma's ear so she could thrust a tag through it and all three girls began to laugh and so they missed how it started.

Neville came walking past them, not even seeing them, just walking, almost hunched over as if he were in pain. Hermione took a step toward him, thinking he must have gotten sick, when Theodore passed her too. He said, "Neville," in a strangled voice but the other man didn't turn and Theodore straightened up and put an uncaring mask on his face even before he saw the three women staring at him in dismay. "It's fine," he said. "Someone have Hannah go after him. She's who he wants."

Hermione exchanged a quick glance with Pansy who nodded and headed for the dance floor where she tapped Hannah on the shoulder. A quick, whispered conversation ensued and Hannah, after a brief, miserable look back at Theo where he stood with Hermione and Padma, she took off, almost running, toward the door Neville had pushed his way through.

"Well," said Theodore. "That was delightfully humiliating. If you ladies will excuse me?" He nodded at them and strode off back to the dark door and shadows where he and Neville had spent the whole of their time as a couple at the ball. Hermione shoved her cup at Padma who took it without a word. She ran after him, catching him in the corridor.

"I'm sure I promised you a dance at some point," Theodore said. "I hope you'll forgive my reneging on that. I find I'm not in the mood to celebrate at the moment."

"I take it Neville ended things?" Hermione asked, dreading the answer even as she knew what it would be. She pulled him out of the public hallway and into an empty classroom, locking the door behind them.

"You are such a clever girl," Theodore said. "They don't call you the brightest in our year for nothing."

She sighed. "And how are you?"

"I'm fine," he said, not meeting her eyes. "He gave it the old college try, as they say. It's not like he didn't warn me up front he liked girls. I just hoped… doesn't matter now. Wish he hadn't done it at the Ball. I could have gone with Susan if I knew planned on ending things, kept her out of trouble."

Hermione wrapped her arms around him and held on as Theodore tried not to shake. "It's fine," he said. "Who cares if he decided he'd rather be with the happy, happy Hufflepuff just because she has a vagina? If it wasn't that it would have been something else. I'm the Death Eater's son; bad enough to bring home a bloke to mum - or grandmum in his case - but to bring me home?" He shook his head. "It's never going to happen."

"It will," she said. When he made a derisive snort she pulled back and smacked him on the arm. "Don't," she said. "Don't you dare assume you don't get to be loved because your father was what he was." She pulled him close again and rested her chin on his head. "Stupid wizards," she muttered. "How do you feel about Muggles?"

"Gosh, mum," Theo said, "Not only am I bringing home a bloke, his Dad was some kind of terrorist and I can't ever tell you what he does, where he goes, or anything about him, but just trust me that we aren't on the dole or selling anything illegal on the street."

"Don't think that would work, huh?" Hermione said.

"Would you want to date a guy whose father thought everyone like you should be killed?" Theo asked. Hermione made an 'ahem' sound and Theo began to laugh. "Okay," he said, "Fine, you win. You _are_ dating that guy. But you might be one of a kind, Hermione."

"Neville liked you enough to try it," she said. "That's something. Maybe not enough, but someone else will figure out that you're worth every bit of hassle and then some."

"It still hurts, Hermione. It hurts so much," Theodore muttered. "I really like - liked - him. I really… and I can't even say, 'oh, well, he's just a jerk' because he's not, it just wasn't for him and it's better that he be honest with both of us, but every time I see him I'll just… I just fucking hate this." He pushed himself away from her and walked over to the windows where he stared out onto the frozen landscape. "You won't even let me have a bloody drink, will you?"

"How about we go for a walk and get cold and uncomfortable instead?" Hermione suggested.

"Don't go into sales," Theodore muttered.

"You know I adore you, right?" she asked. "You know that Draco and I plan to descend upon you after graduation and be the houseguests who just never leave, right?"

Theo turned and looked back at her, a wan smile on his face. "Get your boots, you stupid witch," he said, "and meet me at the back gate. You can't go outside in those shoes. We can walk and talk about how awful Nott Manor is and why no sensible person should want to live there. Drafty windows that could use a good double glazing, stone walls that hold in the chill, wood paneling that makes the whole place seem dark."

"At least I don't plan to breed Kneazles," Hermione said. "Cat hair everywhere."

"Like in your Polyjuice?" Theodore said.

"Now I know you're feeling better," she said. "You're giving me a hard time. If I still had that tail it would be twitching at you."

Theo pushed himself off the wall and sighed. "Just don't invite Ron to move in. Nott Manor is big enough for you and me and Draco and even Pansy's Kneazles, though I'm pretty sure she and Millie have some kind of bucolic cottage all set up already, or maybe she's planning to go live in as much sin as she can manage with Mystery Man. But there are limits and while I could probably handle any number of Weaselys, your ex-boyfriend would be pushing them."

"Even Harry doesn't want to live with Ron anymore," Hermione said as she tucked an arm through Theo's. "He wrote that he's suggested Ron find his own flat because as soon as Ginny graduates she's moving into Grimmauld Place and they want to have sex on every piece of furniture in the place and Ron might find that uncomfortable."

"You and Draco don't plan to - "

"You'll just have to find out, won't you?" Hermione asked as archly as she could.

Before they left the classroom to get booted and winter cloaked so they could go tromp about in the snow Theodore said, "Thanks."

"No problem," Hermione said.

Draco was standing in the corridor waiting for them. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Come with us and get your winter things," Hermione said. "Balls are overrated. We fancy a hike."

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm sorry._**

 ** _There is a drabble called 'Fickle Things' by likeyouwannabeloved that tells this from Neville's POV. I highly recommend it: www DOT fanfiction DOT net /s/11743711/1/Fickle-Things_**


	102. Chapter 102

Their boots on and heavy cloaks thrown over formal wear, Theodore, Draco, and Hermione pushed an unwatched side door open against snow that had piled against it and stomped their way out into the cold night. Despite her cloak Hermione shivered and, with a disgusted snort, Draco pulled his wand and cast warming spells on all three of them and a melting spell on the snow.

"You didn't learn those in class," Hermione observed.

"Some of the fancy Death Eaters didn't like to get their feet wet," Draco said. "Not everything I learned being around those bastards was technically evil."

Hermione laughed, the sound ringing in the still air, and then looped one arm through Draco's and one through Theodore's and said, "You keep the path clear, then."

He did, though the occasional gusts of wind obscured the trail they left behind them. The walked in silence for a while before Draco said, "He's a worthless, no-good - "

"He's not," Theodore said. "And I don't want to talk about it."

That cut off conversation for a bit until Hermione said, apropos of nothing, "You need to learn how to do a patronus."

Theo stopped walking and looked at her. One of the gusts of wind pushed his hair back from his face and blew snow back around their feet and she shivered because even the warming charms couldn't keep the chill away when all she had on was a party dress and a cloak and the wind was blowing through her. "I just got dumped," he said at last, "At the Yule Ball, no less, in public, and your answer is that I need to learn how to do a notoriously difficult spell that requires being able to summon a happy memory?" He tried to cross his arms but she wouldn't let go of his hand and so he stopped tugging on it and just glared at her. "I don't have any happy memories. I think we established this last time we tried this."

Hermione narrowed her lips into a determined look that would have frightened Ron had he been there. "You do," she said. "You told me once that your father taught you to fly, that he listened to your piano recitals."

"My father, the Death Eater," Theo said bitterly.

"Your father, who loved you," Hermione countered. "Are you telling me in all your childhood you don't have a single happy memory?"

"I… of course I do," Theodore said. "But that was - "

"Still counts," Hermione said. She squeezed his hand. "It's hard, Theodore. It's a hard spell. It's going to take practice, but you have to learn to do it."

They started walking again and Theo asked, "What memory do you use to conjure up your little otter?"

Hermione ducked her head and smiled into her scarf. "You'll laugh at me," she said.

"Probably," Theodore said right as Draco promised not to at all.

She rolled her eyes and mumbled something and then, when Theodore yanked on her hand and pointed out it was probably important for him, as a student of the art, to know what she, the teacher, did and could she speak up, she repeated herself. "I think of the time Draco and I first went star gazing," she said. "Last summer."

"You do?" Draco sounded gobsmacked.

"I told you you'd laugh," she muttered. "It's just… everything had been sad and awful for so long and it was just… there I was under the sky and it was warm and peaceful and this popular boy was flirting with me and I was flirting back and it felt like this bubble of innocence that had somehow survived the war and - "

"And then he kissed you?" Theodore asked. He was laughing but it was with delight, distracted from his own romantic misery.

"No," she admitted. "But he touched my lips and it felt - "

"There was definitely chemistry," Draco said. "Of course, you then promptly talked yourself into rejecting me."

"Because it would be awful," Hermione protested. "And, unless we're having totally different experiences, there've been some bits where it's been pretty bad."

"Death eater lover," Theo muttered, sinking back into his malaise. "Why do you care about me learning how to do a patronus so much anyway?"

Hermione licked her lips. "I've been looking over the curriculum Molly Weasley has set up for seventh years," she said, "For Defense."

"That harpy," Draco muttered.

"And," Theodore prompted.

"It's decent," Hermione admitted. "It's thorough. There's a bit much emphasis on exam topics at the expense of practical skills but - "

"The patronus," Theo said, interrupting what promised to be a lengthy exposition on the flaws on Molly Weasley's curriculum planning. "What does this have to do with the patronus charm?"

"She says in her notes that it's well known that Death Eaters can't do one," Hermione said flatly.

Theo stopped walking again and looked at Hermione, a slow smirk blooming on his face. "So you want me to learn how to do it so you can rub both Draco and me in that cu - "

"Theodore!" Hermione snapped.

"That's horrible woman's face?"

She nodded. "Pretty much."

Theo yanked his hand out of hers, put his hands on both her cheeks, and leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. "You," he said when he pulled away, "are the most wonderfully devious, mean, evil woman." He looked over her shoulder at Draco. "Count yourself lucky I am not at all into girls, my friend."

Draco just laughed.

"We'll show those fuckers Death Eater lovers," Theo muttered. "If Death Eaters cannot, by definition, make a patronus I will have the brightest fucking patronus anyone's ever seen."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy Morning!_**


	103. Chapter 103

Hermione ran into Neville when she got back to to the Gryffindor common room. He'd clearly been waiting for her, his eyes filled with guilt and misery. "Is he okay?" he asked.

Hermione sighed and pulled off her scarf and shook the last bit of snow from her shoes. "He will be," she said. "But at the Ball, Neville? You had to do it at the Ball?"

Neville flushed. "I tried to do it earlier," he said. "It was just… he didn't… I've made such a mess of everything." He sank down into a chair and ignored the students still straggling in from the ball, girls with shoes in the their hands and boys looking either smug or dejected. Curious glances lingered on Hermione and Neville and a few heads bent together to whisper questions and answers. Neville and Theo were the best rumor of the evening and Hermione felt a quick rush of gratitude that they'd all go home tomorrow and by the time the holiday was over this would be old news, replaced by what gifts people received and, unless she was much mistaken, the article that the _Prophet_ was sure to run about Harry and Draco.

"Was it your gran?" Hermione asked. "Was she - "

"No," Neville said. He began picking at link at the edge of his trousers and she could see him struggling to find something to say.

"Were you getting flack because of his dad?" Hermione asked, beginning to bristle. She knew all to well what that was like and while she wouldn't have believed that would drive Neville away from anyone maybe she'd been wrong.

"No," Neville said, still sounding miserable. "I mean, yes, of course, but it wasn't that. I've … after the Carrows, you know, a bunch of things said as I pass in the hall isn't… it wasn't that."

Hermione waited. Somewhere she had read that if you just waited for people that they would tell you more than if you asked questions. Not prodding and talking and pushing was hard but she bit down on the inside of her lip to force herself to stay quiet and it worked because Neville said into the space where the words weren't, "I just think I like girls." He took a deep breath. "I mean, I really, really like Theodore. He's smart and he's got this bitter sense of humor and he… he didn't care that I was the not-quite-chosen one and almost everybody else does… but it just didn't… it's not who I am." He looked up. "You two are so close. You must hate me for - ."

"No!" The word burst out of her mouth so loudly that heads turned. "No," she said again more quietly. "I could never hate you." She leaned forward and put her hand over his, stilling its nervous movements of tugging on threads and picking at what lint was left. "We're friends. I helped you find your toad on the train, remember? Back when we were eleven? That kind of thing bonds you for life, right?"

Neville summoned a weak grin from somewhere. "Poor Trevor," he said. "Always getting lost."

"Maybe you can get Pansy to sell you one of her kneazles," Hermione said. "Easier than frogs, I think."

"If she'll ever speak to me again," Neville said.

"Of course she will," Hermione said. "You didn't set him on fire, or anything. Nev, you broke up. It happens. The world isn't ending. He's hurting but he'll get over it."

"You're staying at Hogwarts over the holiday, right?" Neville asked. "You'll -"

"I'll keep an eye on him," she promised. "How about you. Are you going to be okay?"

Neville looked down at his shoes and muttered something that wasn't clear but that sounded a bit like, "Hannah."

Hermione nodded and squeezed his hand. "Owl me if you need anything," she said.

Neville stood up and nodded back. "I will," he said. "I feel so awful, Hermione. I just… I wish it were different."

She stood too and hugged him. "You are who you are," she said. "And I happen to like that person very much."

He sighed and lay his cheek against her hair. "Whatever happened to your familiar?" he asked. "That ugly orange cat of yours?"

"I don't know," Hermione said. "Lost in the chaos of war. I like to think he's off in the Forbidden Forest having a happy cat life but he's probably long dead like so many others."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Greetings to the loveliest people in fandom!**


	104. Chapter 104

When Draco left the next morning to go spend the Christmas holiday with his parents, Hermione waved goodbye and smiled and smiled and, when he was out of sight, began to trudge back up the walk toward the castle. Theodore watched her silent, dejected steps for a long moment and then sprinted to catch up with her. "I got you something," he said conversationally and she flicked him a surprised look. "No need to seem so shocked," he added, pretending to be offended. "All the owl order catalogues that have shown up in the last month and giant vaults of galleons and enforced sobriety all add up to shopping."

"Thanks," she said, a bit subdued but still polite.

"And I won't let you open it until actual Christmas so there's no point in even asking," Theodore said. "And I can't even be teased into hints or - "

"What if he doesn't come back?" Hermione asked, cutting off Theodore's attempts to distract her from Draco's departure.

"Oh, honey," Theodore said, catching her hands in his and making her stop walking. "That boy adores you. He watches you like you're the first ray of sun over the mountain ridge in the morning. It's a bit sickening, to be honest, but he'd do anything for you."

"I guess," Hermione said, her head drooping. "But they're his parents and he'd do anything - has done anything - for them too and I'm just - "

"If you say the word Mudblood I get to hit you," Theodore said. At her look he tightened his grip on her. "You hit me all the time. It's just fair." She gave him a wan smile and he pulled her into a tight hug. "We love our parents as children and then we love our partners as adults. He's grown up, love. We all have. Too fast and too hard, to be honest, but we did it. What he'd do for them in the past, he'd do for you now. It will be okay and I'll be here with you the whole break. Or you'll be here with me, hard to tell."

"It's only been a few months," Hermione said She had her attention focused on the frozen path at their feet. Snow became dirty and ugly when too many people stepped on it and what had been a magical scene a few hours before now was treacherous and brown. "You don't have to spend all your time with me," she added. "I'll be fine."

Theodore looked at her bowed head and said, "You know, I think I want a drink."

Hermione's head snapped up. "You promised," she said. "Theodore!"

He smiled at her, the bland Slytherin smile that meant he was up to something. "Draco lo… adores you," he said softly. "A weekend at home won't change that. I know he wanted to stay and he'll be back as soon as he can. He even made me promise to give you something Christmas morning so he could be here with you in a little way. Now stop moping and come supervise me so I don't break open this lovely bottle of chocolate liquor I happen to have."

"I thought I'd just - "

"Mope alone?" Theodore kept that smile on his face. "I mean, if you want to, knowing I have no self control and I'll just be sitting there staring at - "

"You're a manipulative prick," Hermione said, her eyes narrowed as she glared at him.

"I am," Theodore acknowledged. "How about a card game? Or you can drill me in Runes." He started walking back up the slick path, one of her hands still encased in his. "No one else in Slytherin is staying so you can even come and relax in our luxurious common room instead of that ratty, red tower of yours. The fish have been very pretty this year. I think they had some kind of population burst or something."

"Your common room is dreary," she said, but from her tone anyone could tell she had given in. "And I didn't get you anything."

""Well," Theodore said, "You have one day to figure out a present. Good luck. No way to get anything delivered at this late date." He was cheerfully smug as he pulled her along behind him. "You'll probably just have to be that jerk friend who didn't think to get me anything."

She dug her heels into the packed snow and he had to stop. "Theodore," she asked. "Are you allergic to wool?"

"No," he said. "Why?"

She shrugged. "Let's go drill Runes, shall we?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good morning, wonderful people!**


	105. Chapter 105

Hermione went up to her room and got a project started and then she and Theodore drilled Runes for almost an hour, tucked away in the cool silence of the Slytherin common room, before he said, abruptly, "Did it have to be at the Yule Ball?"

Hermione set her book down and looked up, waiting.

"He just… it was too hard and he couldn't… But why did it have to be _then_?"

"Oh, Theodore," Hermione said. "I'm so sorry." She pulled him into a hug and he sat there, his Rune book still in his hand, unbending in her arms.

"I told you no one would ever want me," he said. "Too gay. Too broken. Too much a Death Eater."

Hermione tightened her grip. "You aren't a Death Eater," she said. "And you aren't broken."

"Gay though," he said.

She nodded. "Good thing, too," she said, "Or I'd have a hard time picking between you and Draco."

His laugh sounded a little like he was holding back tears but he did laugh. "Why the Yule Ball?" Theo said again. "It was… it was the first time I'd ever had a date at something like that. A real date, I mean, not some girl who knew I wouldn't try to grope at her or…" He set the book down and finally buried his face in the bushy hair of the woman holding on to him. "I fucking hate Christmas."

Hermione thought of childhood Christmases with a huge tree and her parents and thought about how they were off in Australia, childless adventurers, and murmured, "I'm not a huge fan anymore either."

"Why can't you be a boy?" Theodore asked.

Hermione laughed a little. "Why can't you be straight?"

He twined his fingers through hers and pulled away a little bit. "It'd be easier," he said. "But it is what it is."

Hermione hesitated. "Did Neville… did you have any reason to think he might be… I mean, I know he _liked_ you, and was curious, but did you ever… I mean, did you guys - "

"Did I have any reason to think he might into guys?" Theodore asked. "Physically?" She nodded and he gave her a sad smile that he tried to turn into a cocky smirk and failed. "How graphic do you want me to be?" Hermione's eyes widened a bit and she waved her hand to indicate that, no, she didn't need explicit details, and Theodore said, "I had some pretty good reasons to think he… yeah, he's not quite as straight as he wants to be." He slouched down. "Not that it matters."

Hermione scooted over so she was almost in the man's lap and tugged at him until he leaned on her again. "You'll find someone," she said.

"You'd think Neville Longbottom, of all people, wouldn't be too scared to… but no. I just wasn't worth it." Theodore didn't make eye contact and Hermione took his chin in her hand and made him look at her.

"I guess some things are just scarier than a snake," she said. "Doesn't meant you aren't worth it. Means it wasn't meant to be him." He still wouldn't look at her and she tightened her grip until he scowled and did. "Love you, Theodore Nott. And so does Draco, and - "

"He's too fucking pale," Theodore said. "You could lose him in snow."

" - and someday," she continued as if he hadn't interrupted her, "I'll dance at your wedding to some guy who also loves you."

"I wish it hadn't been at the Ball," Theodore said, the words soft this time. "That really… fucking Christmas. Stuck in this castle and my study partner doesn't even have a gift for me." He pulled his face away from her grip and picked up his book again. "Happy Yule, everyone."

Hermione laughed and leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. "I'll have a gift for you, you utter pain in the arse," she said. They looked at one another, their faces mere inches apart and Theodore reached a hand up to tug on a lock of her hair.

"Wish you were a boy," he said. "I'd fight Draco for you. Win too, since he's as straight as they come."

"Have you ever even kissed a girl?" she asked him, suddenly curious.

He kissed her on the forehead. "Have now," he said and she laughed.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good morning! It's grey and rainy. Ugh!**


	106. Chapter 106

She never left the Slytherin dorms. By the time she was yawning and Theodore's eyes kept shutting they'd moved from the common room to the dorm room Theo shared with Draco and piled onto his bed. Theodore told her stories of learning to play piano and how utterly bad at it he'd been and how his father had sat through every recital with a proud smile on his face despite the missed notes and plodding tempo.

"That was me at ballet," Hermione said. "I saw the Nutcracker one year and I latched onto the idea that I could be the Sugar Plum Fairy and, well, my parents were big fans of telling children they could be anything they wanted to be if they just worked hard enough."

"You latched onto an idea?" Theodore asked, his arm tucked around her as she nestled against his side. "Past all reason? I can't even believe that. It seems so out of character."

She snorted. "Anyway," she said, elbowing him, "I took so many lessons. So many. And I never got any better. The gap between what I could do and what the other girls in the class could do got wider and wider, but did I stop?"

"Of course you didn't." Theodore was laughing now, teased out of his despondency over Neville by the mental image of a stubborn little girl with her wild hair forced into a bun despite itself, dressed in regulation leotard and tights, and clutching at a barre with talentless determination. "Did they got to your recitals?"

"Every single one," she confirmed. "Parents," she added with a smile that got sadder the longer the pause when on.

"Yeah," said Theodore. "Unconditional love and all that. For me, at least. Not for other people, of course. Other people could burn." He leaned his head back and stared up at end of the poster on the ancient wooded bed. "Probably did, and at his hands."

"Your dad's not just a monster," Hermione said.

"He's a Death Eater." Theodore's words were flat and cold and angry. "They're all monsters."

"He's also a man who loves you," she said. Theodore started to shake his head and she turned in the bed and made him look at her. "Theodore," she said. "My parents are gone. They might as well be dead. Your father, the man who listened to you play the piano badly with a smile on his face, is alive. Don't - " She stopped for a moment and swallowed. "Don't reject the good just because you aren't also a… a… "

"He wanted me to put flowers on my mother's grave," Theodore said. "I haven't yet."

Hermione lay her head back down against his chest. "Would you like me to go with you?" she asked.

"Would you?" he asked. "It's a lot to - "

"Of course I would," she said.

They lay down, nestled into Theodore's bed, both tired and both sad and both lonely, both missing their parents. At last Theodore said, "You know, you aren't alone."

Hermione made a tiny, confused sound and he said, "I know you… the Weasleys were sort of your family in this world and they… and your own parents are gone, and - "

"If you're trying to make me feel better, you're doing a shite job of it," Hermione said.

"No," Theodore said, sounding frustrating. "Just… you and me, if you wanted, you don't have to be alone. We can be each other's family."

Hermione didn't respond for a long time, so long that Theodore began to mutter how if she wasn't okay with that, that was fine and he hadn't meant to make her uncomfortable and then she sniffled loudly and said, gulping air through the tears she was trying very hardness to shed, "No, it's great. You're the crass, jerky brother I never had."

Theodore might have sniffed himself, and cleared his throat, and mumbled something about that was great before he said, "Of course, you're basically the worst sister ever."

"Why is that?" Hermione demanded.

"It's Christmas tomorrow and you don't even have a present for me," he said.

"Just you wait," she promised, thinking of the project she'd left magically powering itself up in her room. She probably should go check on it. She really should. And she would. But first she would close her eyes for just a moment.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello again, lovely people. Could there be readers nicer than you are? I think not._**


	107. Chapter 107

"Shite."

Hermione looked at the knitting project she'd left on automatic and said it again. "Shite." It wasn't that the magic had done a bad job. To be honest, it might be the nicest thing she'd ever made, or charmed into being made. The stitches were tiny and even and not a single one had been dropped. The rows of gold were tidy and flawless. She certainly couldn't complain about the yarn, which was the softest blend of wool and alpaca she'd ever felt. She'd wanted to just wrap herself in the skeins when they'd arrived by owl post and roll around in their luxurious wonderfulness.

The charm had even managed to add in new skeins when one ran out. She'd be impressed by her own charm work if it hadn't resulted in this absurdly long scarf.

Absurdly long.

The magic had used every single skein she'd had and she'd ordered a lot when she'd panicked about making socks for Sarida. There had been forty-two skeins of wool left over. Now there was a single piece of gold yarn about sixteen inches long and a very, very long scarf.

"Well, I'll pretend it was on purpose," she muttered as she transfigured the small box she'd had into a larger one and some parchment into brightly colored paper and began to wrap the present. One more quick transfiguration spell and she'd turned the last scrap of gold yarn into a a gold ribbon she tied around the whole thing. Then again. Then a third time. "Stupid bow," she muttered as she tried one last time and then gave up.

It was a lumpy bow. She made a face at it and then, wrapping her arms around the festive box, trekked back down to the Slytherin common room, said "Cleverness" to get in, and joined Theodore back in his room. He'd gotten cleaned up in her absence and was holding a small box wrapped in green.

"Merry Christmas," he said as he handed it to her. "This is from me." He pulled out a second. "And this is from Draco who wanted me to give it to you so you'd, you know. You two are so sentimental."

"This from the man who tried to give me a hard time because I didn't have a gift for him," Hermione said as she deposited the box on his bed. Thirty-two feet of scarf was heavier than she'd expected. Well, given the colours she didn't think he'd wear it so it wasn't like it mattered. She opened the box from Theo first and her eyes widened. It was a simple gold bracelet with a single charm. "This is so… nice," she said. She held the bracelet up and squinted at the charm. It was a very small dragon. She looked over at Theodore who had his sweetest, most innocent expression on.

"I know how much you like riding dragons," he said.

She huffed out an exasperated snort and held her wrist out so he could put the charm bracelet on then opened Draco's gift. It was a another charm, this one a book. "Slightly more appropriate," she muttered, and held it up to the bracelet and watched in delight as the magic joined the two pieces together.

Theodore watched her face and she blushed when she realized how delighted she seemed by what was, to him, just an ordinary thing. "You never really get used to how… I just really love magic," she said.

"Me too," he admitted. Then, with an avaricious smirk, he tugged at the bow on his present. "What could you have gotten me with no warning," he asked, "and why is this bow fuzzy?"

"It fought me," she muttered. "That bow, I mean."

But Theodore had untied the bow and torn the paper off the box like a child and pulled out the scarf. And pulled out the scarf. And pulled out the scarf. His smile got bigger and bigger the more scarf came out of the box. "I love it," he said at last. "And Gryffindor colours. How did you know that's what I wanted?"

He began looping the red and gold monstrosity around his neck. "I shall wear it everywhere," he declared. He rubbed his hand along it. "Damn, this is soft. What did you make this out of?"

"Alpaca," she muttered, "and wool. Look, I didn't mean it to be that long, the magic just… you don't have to wear it."

He smirked at her. "Oh, but I will," he said. "Everywhere."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - *waves***


	108. Chapter 108 (Draco returns)

Draco had slipped out of his bed at Malfoy Manor before the sun had risen, left a note for his mum that he'd gotten an early start because he wanted to work on his Arithmancy research before too many people got back and filled up the library, and made his way back to Hogwarts, his brand new, stupid Pygmy Puff in tow. The gate let him in, and then the castle, and then his own dormitory. When he opened the door to his room he stopped in brief confusion. There was a pile of what looked like 5 Gryffindor scarves on Theodore's desk and Hermione was curled up at his roommate's side, one arm flung behind her so it dangled off the bed and her face buried in Theodore's shoulder. Draco could feel a lump in his throat; after Neville had decided to end things at the Yule Ball he'd been wary of leaving his friend for fear of what he might do. It looked like Hermione had taken care of things.

He set the cage with the Puff down next to his desk, gave the thing a baleful look, and sighed before he stepped over to the beds. Kicking off his boots and shedding his cloak to the floor, he tugged at Hermione's hand. She turned and looked at him with sleepy eyes and he whispered, "Maybe you'd think about switching beds?"

She blinked a few times and then said, "You're back!"

He tugged on her again and she climbed out of Theo's bed and tucked herself against him in his. "You're cold," she hissed and he grinned and nuzzled his cold nose against her cheek. She shivered and made a grouchy sound but didn't pull away and so he fell back into sleep in his school bed with the witch he adored curled up next to him.

When Draco woke up again, Theodore, and the giant pile of scarves, were gone. His own stirring woke Hermione who grumbled and turned away from him, yanking the blankets off him and hauling them into a ball under her arm which she proceeded to wrap herself around. He sat up and shivered and, after tugging in vain at the edge of what was, after all, his quilt, he felt in his pocket to make sure the box was still there, the bandages on his arm catching a little against fabric of his shirt as he moved.

"Hey."

His insistence on moving had apparently driven Hermione into giving up on going back to sleep and she rolled onto her back and looked up at him.

"I missed you," he said.

Her hair was hilariously awful. She'd tied it back into a plait before going to bed and pieces had escaped their bondage and were poking out with wild abandon giving her the look of nothing quite so much as a deranged sea urchin. He reached down and tucked one of the curls behind her ear before she sat up.

He clutched the tiny box in his hand and then shoved it at her. "Maybe you won't like it," he said in a rush. "I didn't know how much good jewelry really costs and normally I'd give you a family heirloom but that didn't seem appropriate so I bought something but I didn't take out enough galleons and if you hate it we can get something bigger." He stopped. She was staring at him, then at the little box in her hand, then back at him.

"You already gave me a present," she said slowly. "The charm."

"This isn't… oh, Merlin, I'm making a cake of myself, aren't I?" He groaned and rubbed at his face. "Hermione, will you - "

"Yes." She cut him off and then looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said, "What were you going to say?"

"Will you marry me?" His voice squeaked at the end of the question, even though he was pretty sure she'd said yes to his proposal and not to his fear he was making a fool of himself.

"Yes," she said again before flinging herself at him and hugging him.

"You haven't looked at the ring," he said, his face nearly smothered by a particularly lively escaped curl that seemed determined to slip into his mouth and choke him.

She released him, sat back, and opened the box.

"It's not too small, is it?" he asked nervously as she looked at the ring he'd gotten. His mother's ring could take a man's eye out, and he'd seen the portraits of other Malfoy women around the Manor. They generally went for important, showy jewelry, not quaint little rings.

"I love it," she said. She looked up at him and her mouth was held tightly as if she were trying not to cry. "I love it, I love you, are you _sure?"_

He took the ring with its tiny diamond out of the box with the slightly crushed corners and slipped it on to her finger. "So sure" he said. "I'm getting the much better end of this deal." He held her hand and looked down at the sparkle on her finger. "I love you, Hermione Granger. I don't ever want to be without you. I'm selfish and awful and - "

"And kind and smart and loyal and… and you just stop that," she said. And then he was kissing her and they didn't talk any more.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good morning :)**


	109. Chapter 109

When Theodore got back and unwound the endless scarf from his neck Draco gaped at him. "Why are you wearing Gryffindor colours?" he demanded? "And why is that scarf so long?"

"Hermione gave it to me," Theodore said, running a hand along the scarf with proprietary pleasure. When Draco reached out to touch it, Theodore slapped his hand away. "Don't go feeling up my scarf," he said. "I don't like you that way, we've been over this before." He cuddled into his scarf. "You get the girl, I get the scarf."

Draco snickered. "You're missing out," he said. "With me and her. But since I'm taken I guess it's for the best."

Theodore looked at Hermione, frizzy, rumpled, and with a dazed look of rapture on her face,and said, "Either you are far better at pleasing girls than you have any right to be or something other than sex happened in here while I was so considerately 'tracking down tea' and giving you two some private time."

The Pygmy Puff made a chirping sound and Theo spun and pointed at it. "What," he asked in horror, "is that thing doing here?"

"My mother thinks I'm twelve?" Draco suggested with a roll of his eyes.

Hermione interrupted the boys' mutual expressions of disdain by holding her hand out; Theodore looked at the ring and let out a low whistle. "Nice," he said. "I like that you had the fucking taste to avoid one of those awful, gaudy things your mother likes, Draco. Actual class instead of over-the-top vulgarity. I didn't know you had it in you." He reached over as if to shake Draco's hand and then yanked the man forward into a hug. "Smartest thing you've ever done," he whispered into Draco's ear.

"I know," Draco said.

"You, however," Theodore said, turning to Hermione, "are an idiot. This loser? The guy with the purple Pygmy Puff? Really?"

"You did warn me not to break his heart," she pointed out. She'd lounged back on Draco's bed and was watching the two men with a smile that wouldn't fade. "I know you're just jealous, Theodore."

Theodore snorted. "That one? I have more sense than you do, Granger. I know not to get involved with anyone who could get lost in fog. And so slight. Would it be possible for me to meet a man with at least a little meat on him?"

"Is that supposed to be a double entendre?" Hermione asked, squinting at him.

Theodore just gave her an innocent look and clasped Draco on the arm, ready to congratulate him again. Draco flinched at the rough contact and both Theodore and Hermione snapped to attention.

"Difficult visit?" Theodore asked, the words deceptively neutral.

"You hadn't in so long," Hermione said. "Draco, what happened?"

"It's fine," he said. "I'm fine. Do you think you could get dressed so we could track down breakfast? I'm hungry."

Hermione nodded and stood up but, before she left, she stopped and kissed him lightly on the cheek and murmured against his skin, "I love you, Draco Malfoy. I'm sorry your parents somehow pushed you so hard. Next time I'll go with you so you aren't alone."

"Hermione," he began, not sure how to tell her she'd be walking on knives, that if she went home with him every word his parents said to her would be courteous and polite and civil and would not quite conceal how they despised her for an accident of birth, despised her with a prejudice so casual his mother thought nothing of it, a prejudice so absolute it didn't even allow for exceptionalism. If she went to his childhood home, she'd overhear slurs so thoughtless his parents didn't even think of them as slurs. "Oh, I cleaned up the herb garden yesterday," his mother would say. "Now it doesn't look like a Mudblood's yard." His father would nod absently over tea. He wasn't sure how to tell her that until, looking into her eyes, he realized he didn't have to. She knew. She had no illusions at all about his parents' biases and blinders.

"I've known you since you were eleven," she said quietly. "You didn't turn into a boy who hissed Mudblood at me from nowhere."

"I'm so sorry," he said, reaching out for her hand. They stayed there for a long moment, him sitting on his bed, his hand holding onto hers. "I was a shite."

"And now you aren't," she said. "And I was a dreadful swot who thought I was right about everything and my way of doing things - the way in the book - was the only way."

"Let's not get too touchy feely about the personal growth here," Theodore interjected. "You're still pretty much like that."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Have I mentioned lately how utterly lovely you are?_**


	110. Chapter 110

Susan had also stayed at Hogwarts over the holiday, keeping mostly to herself. "I want to catch up on work," she'd said when Theodore and Hermione invited her to join them for walks or meals. They hadn't seen her at all on Christmas Day itself, but the following day she was at breakfast.

"Susan!" Theodore scooped her into a big hug and swung her around.

"You'll hurt your back," she muttered as he squeezed her.

"Don't be ridiculous," Theodore said as he let her go. "I have something for you, by the way. You were off in seclusion yesterday so it's a day late but I'll have you know I had it on time. The lateness of the gift is wholly your fault." He'd brought a bag with him to breakfast and he reached in and pulled out a box with a flourish. "Voila, for the prettiest girl in all of Hogwarts."

Susan stared at the dark haired boy holding the box out toward her with wide eyes. It was clear in that moment that no one else - no one at all - had thought to get her a gift. Not the distant relatives who'd taken her in when her entire family had been slaughtered. Not her Housemates. None of the boys she'd dated over the year. Not even her fellow eighth year students had considered her. Only Theodore. "I don't have anything for you," she said at last.

He pushed the box forward until was pressed against her stomach. "Your smile is all the present I want," he said, then tipped his head to the side as if considering something. "And maybe your company. My pale aresehole best friend is back but I'm reasonably sure he'll be spending the whole day petting his new Pygmy Puff."

Susan looked at Draco, confused.

"My mother wanted to recreate an idyllic Christmas," he muttered. "Just like it was when I was six."

"It's purple," Theodore said in the tone of a man confiding a grave secret. "It chirps."

"You - Draco Malfoy - have a purple Pygmy Puff," Susan said as she gave up and took the box from Theodore. "I don't know what to say to that."

"I'm sorry?" Draco suggested.

"Open it," Theodore said.

Hermione watched as Susan took the silver paper off the box with the careful air of someone who wished to prolong the moment. She blinked a little too rapidly and she lifted the lid off the box, fumbling to keep from dropping the paper until Theodore took it from her and held on to it. The woman lifted out a pair of black leather gloves.

"I noticed your old ones seemed worn," Theodore said quietly. "I thought you might like a new pair."

Susan began to cry in earnest at that and wrapped her arms around Theodore, sniffling into his shoulder. "Why are you so nice," she finally asked.

"Oh, sweetheart," he said, unwinding her from his neck and tucking her in at the breakfast table as though sobbing women were something he dealt with every day. "I'm not nice, you know that." He poured her some tea. "I'm a selfish coward with a lot of galleons, that's all."

"Liar," Susan said.

"That too," Theo agreed.

Hermione slid onto the bench next to Susan and, pulling some toast to her plate, asked the other girl whether she wanted to go over work together that morning. Susan didn't answer her, however. Instead, still sniffing and looking around for a handkerchief, she pointed to Hermione's finger and wordlessly waited for confirmation. Hermione looked at the ring and the happy flush that crept over her cheeks made Susan emit what sounded like a squeak.

"You," she said, "you and Draco, that's so wonderful… it's… I'm so happy for you!"

"Let's not act so surprised," Theodore said with a roll of his eyes as he took his own place at the breakfast table. "They've been planning on living together at my place - just invited themselves over without so much as a by-your-leave - so at least now they'll be properly married." He glanced at Draco. "Right?"

Draco looked at Hermione nervously, and she twisted the ring on her finger. "We haven't exactly talked about a date yet, Theodore," she said.

He threw his hands up. "Great," he said to Susan. "They'll still be dreadfully unmarried. I tell you, I can't win."

Susan pressed her hands to her mouth and giggled.

"There," Theo said with satisfaction. "My present."


	111. Chapter 111

Ginny came back to Hogwarts early. "I love my family," she said defensively when Draco made a show of looking at a calendar and then at her, "but they can be a bit much. Everyone - _everyone_ \- was home for Christmas and the Burrow got even smaller, somehow. Charlie seemed smug about something and Bill and Fleur spent the whole time making lovey-dovey faces at each other and George and Ron alternated between depressed and angry. It was so much fun. So much. And I don't even want to talk about my mother. 'Don't fly so fast, Ginevra!' and 'Maybe you should spend less time with Hermione, Ginevra.'"

"How about the other one?" Theo asked, ignoring the mimicry of Molly Weasley. "The stiff one who was Head Boy?"

"Percy?" Ginny asked in surprise. No one ever asked about Percy.

"That's the one I guess."

"He's fine, I guess," she shrugged then frowned. "Things are still a little strained between him and everyone else. He was working at the Ministry, you know, and he was loyal to his boss until the final battle and he resigned and… he's a bit adrift I think, to be honest. He got another job in government but it's not as good as the one he had before and he's frustrated and no one's sympathetic."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Who cares about your endless supply of brothers, Gin. Do you want a Pygmy Puff? I mean, it's kind of your brothers' fault the damn things even exist so I think it's your responsibility to take the thing for me."

"What?" Ginny goggled at him. If she had listed all the things she'd ever expected to come out of Draco Malfoy's mouth, a request she take one of the pets her brothers had developed would not have made the list. Draco explained about the purple ball of fluff he had in his room thanks to his mother's poor choice of gifts and, though endless giggles, Ginny informed him that, no, she didn't want another Pygmy Puff. She'd had one and they were cute enough but all they did was chirp and sit around.

"You got the chirping part right," Theo said. "Thing never shuts up."

"Give it to your first year girl fan club," Ginny suggested. "They can have a group pet that way, and you're the hero and free of the thing all at once."

Draco laughed at her suggestion. "I never get to be the hero, Gin, you know that."

"Not true," said Hermione, who'd come up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. "You're my hero."

"I think I might be ill," Theodore said.

"I agree," Ginny said, making a face. "You're worse that Bill and Fleur." Then she saw the ring and gasped. "Is that what I think it is?" she demanded.

Before Hermione could answer and she and Ginny could descend into a well of girlish squealing from which there was no escape, Theo said, "No. It doesn't mean they have any plans to get married any time soon. At all. They want a long engagement, Ginny Weasley. Years long. They talk about not wanting to rush into things and giving his parents time to adjust and how they're both so young and all sorts of mature and reasonable things that are no fun at all." He mock sulked.

Ginny ignored Theodore and ooo-ed and aww-ed over the ring anyway and she and Hermione walked off, Pygmy Puff free, while Ginny talked about how Harry had plans to go root about in the Potter vaults, where he'd never spent more time than was necessary to get out basic living expenses, and find her some family heirloom.

After they'd turned the corner and their voices had faded away Draco said, "I wish I could have given Hermione a Malfoy heirloom, but - "

"She doesn't want that," Theodore said. "Don't be an idiot."

"Still," Draco said, "Even Potter - "

"Your brother," Theo smirked.

Draco looked horrified and Theo pulled out the _Daily Prophet_ and waved it under Draco's nose. "That photo you took at the wonderful Yule Ball? You didn't mention that Potter said you two were as close as brothers. I think I might be jealous."

Draco snatched the paper and stared at the photo. He, Potter, Ginny and Hermione stood, smiling with what looked like unfettered, simple happiness at the camera. "After war, new friendships formed," the caption read. "Harry Potter says former Death Eater Draco Malfoy 'like a brother to me.'"

"Nimue trapped in a bloody tree," Draco muttered. "I can't wait for the owl from my parents on this one."

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! May your day be filled with sunshine and peace :)_**


	112. Chapter 112

Draco handed the letter from his parents to Hermione with a sigh. Theodore scooted over and didn't even pretend he wasn't reading it over her shoulder.

 _My Dearest Dragon_

"Well," said Theodore, "there goes calling him that in bed." Hermione hit him on the arm.

 _How pleased I was to see you in the paper this morning. Harry Potter is a good friend to have. Your father and I have decided we really must have that Easter Ball this year for you and all your friends. Little Astoria Greengrass will be home from Beauxbatons for the holiday as well and it will be a change for you to reconnect with her._

"Isn't Daphne's sister fourteen?" Theodore asked. "That seems a little gross, if you ask me."

"No one did," Draco pointed out. "But, yes, the idea is a little - "

"Gross," Susan said. "Are your parents really trying to fix you up with a child? Don't they know about…?" She pointed to Hermione's ring and Draco looked guilty.

"Not exactly," he muttered.

 _Let me know which of your friends at school to whom you'd like me to send invitations. Are you still friendly with Harry Potter's little companion? The Muggle-born one?"_

"You mean the one right next to him in the photograph in the paper?" Theodore asked with a snort. "That Muggle-born? Selective eyesight much?"

"It's actually hard to read this with you offering commentary to every line," Hermione pointed out. Her fingers had tightened on the parchment enough for it to wrinkle and Theodore set a gentle hand on her shoulder for a moment even as he continued to tease her.

"Fortunately for me, you're the brightest witch of our year so you'll suffer through," Theodore said. He adjusted his scarf and smirked. "And a dab hand at knitting as well."

"I cannot believe you are wearing that inside," Hermione said.

"It's a drafty castle," Theodore said. "I wouldn't want to get a cold." He patted the scarf. "It's not everyone who has a scarf like this."

 _Just remember the advice I gave you, dearest son. It was a joy to have you home for the holiday and we look forward to seeing you again at Easter; since you are now so close to Harry Potter we'll be sure to send him an invitation to the Ball at Easter. Your father sends his love along with mine. Your loving mother._

"Do I dare ask what advice that was?" Theodore said.

Draco rubbed at his arm. "I'd rather you didn't," he said. "I'm sure you can figure it out."

Hermione handed the letter back to Draco and sighed. "She's never - "

"And I don't care," he said. He crumbled the letter up and tossed up into the air and then caught it as if it were a Snitch. Ginny came into the Hall and Draco pegged the wadded up paper at her as hard as he could and she ducked and snatched it from the air. She hurled it back and Draco handed it, and a candle from the center of the table, to Hermione. "Care to do the honors?" he said.

She laughed and held the edge of the paper against the flame before using her wand to float the burning parchment in the air while it burned itself out. They all clapped as the ash settled to the floor and then looked guiltily at the doorway whence a disapproving throat clearing could be heard.

Ginny muttered with some guilty of her own, "Percy wanted to come up and visit for a few days. He's got a break at the Ministry and mum's making him - "

"Percy," Hermione sent an uncomfortable smile at the man standing rigidly in the doorway. "I can go so you and Ginny can visit over tea without - "

"Do not be absurd," the man said as he approached them and sat at the table, his spine straight and his feet neatly placed under him. "I am an adult. That you and my brother did not, in the end, prove to be compatible is hardly reason for me to eschew your company." He took a cup and began to pour himself some tea. " Or for you to avoid mine." He nodded at Draco. "Mr. Malfoy. I had the pleasure of running into your mother at my brother's shop last week. She seemed to be purchasing one of George's little fluffy things. You have a younger cousin, I assume?"

"Alas, no," Draco drawled.

"Technically, yes," Hermione said.

"But, the alas," Draco said, ignoring her, "is that that thing was for me."

Percy's lips tweaked up in a brief, genuine smile. "What a relief," he said.

"In what sense?" Theo demanded.

"My mother is apparently not the only one who gives inappropriately childish gifts at the holiday." He pulled a set of knitted mittens out of his pocket and lay the on the table. One had a large 'P' on it, the other an equally large 'W'. "Am I really supposed to wear those to work?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Another day, another chapter as we slowly pull ourselves, hand by hand, toward graduation and the end. I'm off to get the pinks and purples in the hair touched up today!_**


	113. Chapter 113

After breakfast Percy, who did indeed put the childish mittens on, albeit with a grimace, joined his sister's friends as they loped their way around the grounds, kicking snow out of their way. He admitted he'd come to the school worried about her. "The article in the _Daily Prophet_ ," he said in explanation. "I know that paper is a sorry excuse for journalism at best and, at worst, completely fictional, but it is a bit disconcerting to see your sister chummy with a Death Eater." He glanced at Draco. "No offense."

"How is that not supposed to be offensive," Theodore asked wryly. "You came to Hogwarts because you think that, what, Draco here is off corrupting your sister?"

"She has a history," Percy said stiffly. "I worry."

"She has a history of _what_?" Draco demanded.

"Of falling for men who tell her pretty lies," Percy said. The three men looked at the group of women who had walked faster and were out of hearing range. Susan, Ginny, and Hermione all had their heads down against the slight wind and had clustered near a small shed that acted as a windbreak. "She does not accept concern, you understand. Even when she was eleven, when - "

"When none of you cared?" Draco asked. "When she had a monster in her head and your whole family brushed it off as unimportant or, worse, as some kind of naughtiness she'd gotten into, like a kid eating too much candy and ending up sick?" His voice had started to rise in defense of the woman and Theodore had to nudge him to keep it down.

"I cared," Percy snapped. "I followed her and worried about her and she brushed me off at every turn. My own girlfriend at the time was petrified and I still tried to… Ginevra can be impossible."

"So you thought she must have fallen for another Dark wizard?" Draco said in disgust. "So you came up here to… after…" He struggled to say the name and then with a grimace moved on, "I'm nothing. No one who stood up to… I'm just a…"

"I see that," Percy said. He looked down at his mitten clad hands. "And I am sorry for having assumed you were inherently untrustworthy because you had a bad war."

"She's your sister," Theodore said. "I guess we can't blame you for worrying." He glanced at Draco. "Your parents are all set to tell you to exploit the Harry Potter connection while trying to sell you off to a child and Perce here is just worried about his sister. I think we can call this a point for the Weasley family."

A little smile played around the edges of Percy's face and Draco sighed as he looked at the lanky ginger man at their side. Where Ron was all burly and round and someone he hoped to never see again, and the wretched matriarch of the clan nothing but dumpy sweaters and flat shoes, Percy Weasley seemed to be a neatly pressed pair of trousers, angled edges to his face, and, rather shockingly, a willingness to admit he might have misjudged a person.

"You're nothing like your brothers," Draco said, realizing as soon as the words came out of his mouth they were thoughtless and probably better left unsaid. Even Theodore raised an eyebrow at the tactlessness of that.

"We have the same hair," Percy said at last, the words as crisp as his pleats.

"I'm sorry," Draco said. He stopped and held a hand out. "I'm Draco Malfoy. I'm friends with your little sister and engaged to a woman who used to be part of your family."

Percy took the hand and shook it. "I'm Percy Weasley," he said. "It's quite nice to meet you."

Theodore glanced up ahead. The three women were all watching them. "I think they know we're talking about them," he said. "We might be in trouble."

"Of course they know," Percy said. "Ginevra's always been clever and Hermione's quite a girl. Hard working. Precise." He looked at Draco. "You're a lucky man."

"Jealous?" Theodore asked with a smirk. "First your little brother and now a Death Eater gets the hard-working, precise girl?"

Percy shook his head, however. "She is a remarkable woman but she is not, as they say, my type."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, lovelies!_**


	114. Chapter 114

The holiday passed. Theodore wore his scarf everywhere. Draco fed his Pygmy Puff and sighed at tiny purple creature. Hermione studied Runes and they all took to spending time in the room that had been set aside for Recovery Group, less to talk about their fee-fees, as Pansy would have put it, and more to just have a place where they could go that didn't feel like one House's territory. They'd tried the Slytherin Common Room, Gryffindor Tower and even the Hufflepuff dorms and, while Theodore had pronounced those as the best of the lot due to their proximity to the kitchens, they still ended up in their own space most days and, at last, it was the last day of the holiday and classes were due to start.

Susan was sitting on one of the couches stroking Draco's tiny pet with one finger when Pansy flounced in. "Hi, losers," she said. "Are we all ready for a spring semester of slurs and polite condemnation?"

"You look happy," Susan said.

"Sex can do that," Pansy said, sinking down onto one of the couches with a self-satisfied smile.

"Saw your guy, I take it," Theodore said. "Or are you and Millie closer than you've suggested."

She threw a pillow at him and he caught it. "Told you I don't like girls," she said. "Stop trying to convert us all to your perversions." There was a gasp from Susan and Pansy gave her an annoyed look. "Oh, stop being such a Puff," she said. "The git knows I adore him and that I'd rip anyone who gave him a hard time a new one. Doesn't mean I'm going to treat him with kid gloves."

"Do you treat anyone gently?" Susan demanded.

"Do you want me to treat you like you're going to break?" Pansy drawled in response. "Because I thought you were stronger than that."

Susan looked startled at that assessment and her finger stopped stroking the little Pygmy Puff, a change it objected to with a loud chirp that made Pansy jump.

"What the fuck is that?" she demanded, pointing at the purple puff. "Who brought one of those dreadful things to school?"

"It's mine," Draco said. "And, no, I don't want to hear about it. The short version is that my mother's a pain in the arse."

Pansy's eyes softened for a moment. "Did you make it through the holiday without - "

"No."

She nodded slowly. "Do you need anything?"

"A magic pill that will make my mother stop talking about Astoria Greengrass?" Draco suggested. "Did you know she can paint with watercolors? And she knows good wine? And she can sing in Italian?"

"You don't speak Italian," Theodore said.

"Only a minor hindrance," Draco said.

"Like the one where you're engaged to someone else?" Theodore asked.

At that Pansy nearly shrieked and scrambled off her couch to grab Hermione's hand. She examined the ring and then nodded. "Pretty," she said. She held her own hand out and Hermione grabbed it in turn. The black opal that was the centerpiece of her ring glittered, surrounded by tiny diamonds, and Hermione's eyes widened.

"That's beautiful," she said in awe. "Pansy, that… that's not a dinky bit of jewelry."

Theodore ambled over and looked at the ring and let out a low whistle. "No," he said. "That's not. Who is this guy?" He cocked his head to the side. "Who's rich and single in wizarding society? I mean, it's not me, not Draco, not Potter - "

Ginny let out a snicker at that. No ring glittered from her hand but it was no secret she and Harry planned to live together at Grimmauld Place as soon as she graduated.

" - and all the Blacks are dead," Theo continued.

"No loss," Susan muttered, possibly the nastiest thing any of them had heard her say in a while.

"Some people do work for a living," Pansy observed. "There is life outside hereditary wealth."

Theodore gave her a long look. "Forgive me if I have a hard time picturing you with some peasant." He smirked. "He's a Muggle isn't he? That's why you wanted Hermione to teach you how to go shopping in Parrods."

"Harrods," Pansy said. "And no."

"Half-blood?" Draco asked.

"We're not playing this game," Pansy said. "So, Gin, how are your brothers?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm in awe because you lovely, amazing people pushed this over 11K reviews yesterday. I just… thank you._**

 ** _Pansy's ring (and Hermione's) are on the pinterest board for this fic._**


	115. Chapter 115

Draco was sitting at the dinner table, head down over a text he'd brought with him, not paying attention to much of anything else when Ginny Weasley sauntered over and made a show of sitting down next to him and throwing her arm around him.

"Ginny?" he said politely as he set the book down. "You wanted something?"

She gave him a look that spelled trouble and he began to feel uneasy. "Let's go flying," she said.

"Now?" he asked her.

"Don't think you can face me?" she challenged him. "Might lose your dinner?"

Draco stood up. "I am not moved by your taunting," he told her. "I am, however, bored as Theo and Hermione are off drilling one another on Runes. There are, apparently - "

"No." She cut him off. "Don't tell me. I've already had to listen to Hermione talk about them and I really, really don't care about Runes."

He shrugged and began to follow her out of the hall, frowning as she took an unnecessarily long route that led him past the High Table where Molly Weasley sat. He glanced at her and she narrowed her eyes and glared back at him and Draco considered, not for the first time, that this seemingly dumpy housewife had killed his aunt.

It made him wary of her because he knew how dangerous Bellatrix had been.

"Gineva," Molly Weasley said in a low voice. "Just where do you think you're going?"

"Flying," Ginny said in an airy voice that made Draco turn his eyes from the formidable mother to the equally - or perhaps more - formidable daughter. "Draco and I are great chums. We fly a couple of times a week. Have all year."

"I forbid - " Molly Weasley began but Ginny just laughed.

"Draco's one of my best friends," she said. "Harry says he's like the brother he never had."

Draco considered whether it would be possible to kill Harry Potter for that little public declaration. Ginny had to know it was false but here she was, throwing her boyfriend's words in her mother's face with what looked like malicious glee.

"I did read the _Prophet_ article," Molly Weasley said. "But you are still - "

"And I'm of age," Ginny said. "I'm of age, I have a few months left until I graduate, and then I'm planning to play professional Quidditch. Flying against Draco is great practice." She smiled. "Plus, as I said, we'e chums." She patted Draco on the arm and he glowered at her. "I think Harry's planning on asking him to be a groomsman in our wedding."

"Ron," Molly began but Ginny interrupted her.

"Needs to find his own place," she said. "And move out. And on. I don't plan to live with a brother scowling at me from every corner for the rest of my life."

She trotted out of the hall and Draco followed her, waiting until they were clear of the doors before he said, "Mind explaining what that little performance was about?"

Ginny crossed her arms and looked back at the Hall behind them. "You aren't in Defense anymore," she began and Draco nodded. Doing independent study with Hemione and Theo was a relief. The handful of seventh year Slytherins in the class were still wavering on whether they wanted to stick out the rest of the year with Professor Weasley or abandon ship and trust Hermione as a teacher. She'd coaxed Theo into getting larger and larger silver wisps when he tried the patronus charm so Draco was pretty sure she knew what she was about. "She's been covering the major Dark wizards in history," Ginny continued and Draco nodded again. They'd been just starting that unit when Neville Longbottom had called the woman out on her unfair grading and in-class bias. "Well, she started on Tom this week."

Draco took a deep breath. He wasn't sure he was ever going to get used to how Ginny called his worst nightmare Tom. "And?" he asked.

"All Death Eaters were bad," she said. The words hung in the air between them and Draco realized he was rubbing at his Mark without meaning to. "All evil," Ginny said again, "No exceptions. They can't do a patronus charm because only good people can do those."

"Umbridge could do one," Draco said.

Ginny looked at him for a long moment and then a wicked grin stole over her face. "A hit," she said. "A very palpable hit."

"Hamlet," Draco said. "Not the guy I'd most like to be compared to."

Ginny gave him a confused look.

"It's a quote from Hamlet," he said. "The Muggle play?"

Ginny shrugged. "It's just something I've heard Hermione say," she admitted. "Anyway, my mother's being a bitch and I'm making a point."

Draco laughed and swept her into a hug. "I love you, Ginny Weasley," he said. "I hope Potter recognizes how amazing you are."

"He does," she said. "Now, are we going to fly or not?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Morning, lovelies!_**


	116. Chapter 116 (Theodore's Patronus)

"I can't do it," Theodore said, nearly tossing his wand down in frustration. "Hermione, this is pointless."

They'd both taken refuge in their Recovery Group room. It had become the place the eighth years - with the occasional addition of Draco's prepubescent fan club - went to socialize, the place they worked on their Defense Against the Dark Arts independent study, and, at this moment, the place where they were struggling with magic. Hermione rubbed her head and tried to think of another way to go about it. They'd been working on Theodore's patronus for weeks and he'd yet to produce more than a wisp of silver smoke. Even Sari, who had sat in on one lesson, had gotten a somewhat more substantial result. "It's hard," Hermione said and sighed as she sat down; Draco had gotten it so easily she hadn't expected Theodore to have this kind of struggle. He sank down on the couch next to her. "Maybe I'm not cut out to be a teacher," she said. "I can't even show you how to do something Harry taught everyone."

"I think it's more likely that I'm just not a good enough person to make one," Theodore said, a bitter mocking tone masking his despair. "I'm a Death Eater's son. A drunk. Even Neville Longbottom decided I wasn't good enough and we all know it wasn't because he was afraid to face down slurs in the halls. He just didn't want me. Smart man."

"Stop it," Hermione said. "Just stop it. You're not a bad person and you're not - ." She broke off with a sniff that became another sniff and then another until Theodore turned to look at her.

"Hermione," he said in shock, reaching a shaking hand out to touch the tear creeping out of the corner of her eye. "Are you okay? Don't cry. I'm not worth crying over, I'm not." He fished a handkerchief out of pocket and dabbed at her eye until, with an exasperated sound that suggested she was afraid he'd poke her eye out with his well-meaning fussing, she snatched the cotton square from him and mopped up her own face.

"I'm fine," she said, sniffling again as more tears slipped out and Theodore stared at her in something akin to shock. "I just hate that you think you're…you're not a bad person, you're not."

He slouched down and rested his head on her shoulder. "It's hard to believe that," he admitted. "I don't feel like a good person. I feel like I am what people say." He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "I really want a drink, Hermione. I want to not feel anything. That makes it all so much easier. Why can't I just be numb all the time?"

They sat in silence broken only by the occasional sniff until she murmured, "It's the light you saw in your father's eyes when you flew a broom on your own for the first time. The way he'd tried to keep from jumping forward to catch you when you wobbled and then the way he looked when you turned back from the far end of the yard."

Theo stiffened. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Your patronus," Hermione said. "It's the feeling you had when you looked out from your piano recital and you knew you'd bungled half the notes but your father looked proud anyway because he loved you. It's Pansy cursing fifth years who call you poof as you pass by, it's fresh apples in fall and - "

"And a giant scarf," he said softly, "that holds out the chill. And a frizzy-haired witch too stupid and too stubborn to know when to stop." He made a sad face and tried again. "Expecto patronum," he said, not expecting anything as he rested against the woman at his side. The usual wisp of silver came out but this time it slowly coalesced into a small rabbit that twitched its nose a few times before fading away.

Hermione started at the spot where the rabbit had been before, her hand clutching Theodore's arm. "Did you see that?" she asked.

"I did it," he whispered. "I did it. I didn't think… I'm not a Death Eater, I'm not. I'm really not. No matter what people say… I'm…" He doubled over and began to cry, great wracking sobs that shook his whole body. "I did it, Hermione, I did it." he said again. "Thank you… just thank you so much."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - It's sunny! Happiness! Joy! (SAD's a bitch)_**

 ** _I know I can't thank you all individually for reviewing anymore (time prohibits doing that and writing so I can post every day) but I really, really appreciate when people take the time to talk back and reviews can and do influence the story. Massive MASSIVE internet love for all of you. You've made writing what has turned into a much longer story than I had anticipated a pleasure and keep me adding chapters every day with you enthusiasm to the point that though I will be away from my computer for about a third of December I've gotten enough chapters pre-written I'll still be able to post every day._**

 ** _If you have a question, the best way to nudge me is via tumblr, just because its easier to answer when I have a random moment in the dance school lobby or some such._**


	117. Chapter 117

Susan laughed as she wound her way out of the Hall after dinner, a smirking boy's scarf caught in her hands. Hermione and Theodore exchanged glances as they watched her disappear, off to mute her loneliness with another hapless partner.

"I hope she doesn't get pregnant," Theodore muttered.

"I hope she doesn't catch something," Hermione said.

Pansy looked at both of them and snorted. "She won't," she said. "She's not an idiot and those Hufflepuffs have detailed classes on how to avoid either of those problems."

"How do you know _that_?" Theodore demanded. "Merlin knows all Snape ever said was some kind of muttered snarl about how he expected upper crust scions like ourselves to control our baser urges and if he had to tell our parents we'd compromised some girl we'd live to regret it." He examined his nails. "He rather delightfully avoided looking at me for that entire lecture."

"Your guy's a Puff, isn't he?" Draco said with delight, far more interested in Pansy's insight into Hufflepuff than he was in revisiting the painfully awkward command to stay out of broom closets that Snape had felt covered his sexual education responsibilities as the Head of Slytherin House. "Is it that Flinch-Fletchley fellow?"

"Who?" Pansy asked, giving him a scowl. He spread his hands and smirked at her and her scowl deepened until Theodore poked at her face and told her she'd get wrinkles if she kept that up. "Flinch who?" she asked again.

"I think he means Justin Finch-Fletchley," Hermione said. " _Finch_ , Draco, not _Flinch._ "

Draco shrugged in a way that clearly indicated he neither knew nor cared what this man's name was. Hie real interest lay in weaseling information out of Pansy on her significant other. Hermione smacked him on the arm and he gave her a mock wounded look before dropping a kiss on her cheek. "That hurt," he said with the best injured expression he could muster. Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear, "You could kiss it and make it better?"

"You want me to kiss your arm?" Hermione murmured back. "I'd have expected you to have other places in mind."

Draco smirked at her, his grey eyes sparkling. "I do wonder where Susan gets off to," he said.

"Me too," Hermione said, smirking back at him.

"Probably the back of the library," Pansy said. "No one goes there. And if you think the 'don't get anyone pregnant' conversation was bad, you should have been there for the 'don't let a boy touch you and if you need female supplies go see Pomfrey, not me' version the girls got."

"Ewww," Theodore opined.

Pansy grinned "We used to send someone to him to ask about cramps every two to three weeks. I don't think he ever figured it out but it was a long-standing tradition." She took a sip of her tea. "I talked about clumps of tissue when it was my turn. 'I can feel them coming out,' I said. 'What should I do?'"

"No," Theodore said in delight. "What did he do?"

"His posture got very good and he said I should go see Madam Pomfrey." Pansy said. "I told him I was too embarrassed and I trusted him as my Head of House." She reached for another slice of the cake that had been served with dinner. "It was beautiful."

"You are an evil, _evil_ woman," Draco said with evident admiration.

Pansy made a mock curtsey from where she sat. "I am a Slytherin after all." She cocked her head and regarded Hermione. "How did McGonagall handle this in Gryffindor?"

"She didn't," Hermione admitted. "I don't think there was a single acknowledgement that teenagers might need information on this at all, ever."

"Really?" Pansy sniffed. "Figures." She squinted at Padma. "And for you?"

"It started with detailed charts about fertility," Padma said. "But it descended into a heated argument on sexual mores across cultures and got rather ugly." She shrugged. "The bit where we passed around Muggle contraceptives and had an argument on whether a 3% failure rate was acceptable was interesting."

"Muggle contraceptives fail 3% of the time?" Draco sounded horrified. "But that's awful."

"Those are the good ones," Hemione said. "Condoms are more like a 12% real world failure rate."

"What's a condom?" Draco asked.

"Trust me," Theodore muttered. "You don't want to know. Magic is a beautiful, _beautiful_ thing."

"Huh," Draco said, wholly confused. He shook his head and dismissed unfortunate Muggles and their unfortunate birth control methods that failed. "Can I interest you in walk to the library?" he asked Hermione.

"Subtle," Pansy said. "Very subtle, Draco."


	118. Chapter 118

Draco and Hermione knew every inch, every corner, every nook in the library. They should. It was, after all, where they'd spent their summer in tedious labor. Now they smiled at Madam Pince and she actually dimpled at them under her pointed black hat and hooked nose before she returned her attention to the book in her hands. Hermione craned her neck back to catch a glimpse of the title and pinched her lips together in suppressed mirth when she saw it.

"What?" Draco asked.

"Our esteemed librarian, dignified and serious?" Hermione asked.

"Yes?" Draco said.

"Is reading _A Veela Has His Day_." Draco looked confused until Hermione leaned in closer and whispered, her face burning a little, "It's a series of very, very smutty romance novels. _A Veela Has His Day. The Vampire at Night. The Werewolf of the Month._ They're all… they're not very good," she finished somewhat clumsily.

Draco's eyes widened for a moment and then he smirked at her as they tucked themselves into a rather large alcove that had once played host to an unattractive bust of a historical witch and the matching bust of her partner and now had a red, velvet certain drawn across it and a settee with a broken arm that had been shoved out of sight. He sat down and she, somewhat unsure, sat next to him. The seat was wide enough they could both sit on it but small enough that kept them pressed up against one another and, after fidgeting and shifting a bit to try to get comfortable, Hermione swung her legs up and over Draco's lap. He rested a hand on her thigh and slid it upward.

"Do you really think Susan brings her beaus here?" Hermione asked in a shaking voice.

Draco leaned over so his mouth was at her ear. "Nervous?" he asked.

"We're in public," she hissed. "In the library!"

"Where the librarian is absorbed in a book you seem to know is smutty," Draco said. "And everyone else is at dinner of skiving off work. We're the only students here and you know it."

"It's still - "

"Risky?" he asked. He nipped at her ear. "How do you know what that book is about, anyway?" His fingers crept a tiny bit higher as Hermione looked at the thick curtain that obscured their hiding place.

"I've read it," she admitted at last.

Draco cocked his eyebrows up and brushed a finger against the edge of her knickers. She bit her lip and flicked another glance at the curtain. "Do you want me to stop?" he asked, suddenly afraid she really did object. "I could - "

"No," she muttered. "Just… be quiet."

He nodded and slipped a hand into the knickers he'd been touching and let his fingers brush against the witch half in his lap. She made a tiny sound and he smirked at her. " _You_ be quiet," he said. Her eyes widened at his teasing tone and a tongue darted out to lick at the edge of her lips but she nodded. He watched her face while he slipped his fingers back and forth and around and used the way she smothered gasps to guide him and soon his hand, and her knickers, were sopping and she had grabbed his other hand and was clutching at it, her nails digging into the flesh at the base of his thumb so painfully he was sure he would have marks for days. She stiffened and a series of shudders went through her frame and, only mostly sure that meant she was done, he hesitantly pulled his hand away. When she pulled herself forward to press her mouth to his him he tried to discreetly wipe his hand on the back of the velveteen chair as he returned her enthusiastic kiss.

"So," he said after a moment, "What's in those books, anyway? The Day of the Inferi ones."

"Not inferi," she said. "Gross. Veela and vampires and… obsessive love and, uh, very physical relationships."

"Very physical?" Draco asked, nibbling at her neck. "Like this?" Hermione turned a bright shade of red, far more embarrassed than he'd ever seen her and he pulled away and goggled a bit. "How detailed do these books get?" he demanded, suddenly horrified that _Madam Pince_ who was probably old enough to be his _grandmother_ was apparently reading _porn_ in the _library._

Some things just did not bear thinking about.

What if Madam Pince had _sex_?

Draco shook his head as if that would clear such horrifying ideas out of it.

"Maybe I could read some of one of them to you," Hermione said, her voice quivering a bit. "If you wanted." She looked around. "Not here, though."

Draco nodded, afraid at first if he spoke his voice would be nervous and embarrassing instead of suave and confident. He'd been doing such a good job of being confident and sophisticated he hated to ruin it now. "That would be… I'd like that," he said at last.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good morning! Hullo!**


	119. Chapter 119

They were walking back from the library, delaying when they'd have to separate and go into their respective dorms, when they ran into Theodore, giant scarf draped around his neck. "Your stupid purple thing," he said to Draco in exasperation. "It's chirping again. I thought you were going to give it to the girls!"

Draco looked briefly guilty and then smug. "I kind of like it," he drawled. "It's a better pet than that thing around your neck."

Theodore pet his scarf and said, "You're just jealous."

The three of them were laughing and Draco had looped an arm around his roommate and long time best friend when a student none of them knew walked by and muttered something under his breath. Hermione heard the casual slur but didn't quite believe it. She turned to the speaker and said, her tone a warning even the most obtuse couldn't miss, Draco, who still had an arm draped over Theo's shoulders, had to keep from letting out a low whistle.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. What did you say?"

The boy looked at her and said, unembarrassed, "C'mon, Granger. It's not like you don't know he's a fucking pouf." He added, smirking at Theodore, "And a Death Eater. You're lucky not to be in Azkaban, though I guess having Neville the hero as your –"

"You are treading on very dangerous ground," Hermione said. "You need to stop now." Draco put his free hand on her shoulder and squeezed as if that could somehow ward off the storm that was coming.

There was a long pause while the boy gave her a long, contemptuous look that took in her obvious physical affection with Draco, a look that lingered on the blond boy's covered - always covered - forearm in a way that made his meaning clear. Theodore saw the glance and narrowed his eyes.

"Hermione, it's fine," Theodore said, trying to divert her. "It's not like it's the first time I've heard it."

She turned her back on the posturing student and asked, "What would you do if someone called me a Mudblood?"

Theodore almost smiled at how furious she sounded, how ready to do battle on his behalf. "I'd explain that no one uses such dated terminology anymore." He paused and added, softly, "With my fists."

"Muggle violence," Hermione said and he shrugged.

"I've found that after last year I don't care to use my wand to hurt people," he said in a low voice.

She nodded at that confession ; Draco didn't either. "Do you expect me to not stand up for you?" she asked.

"Be careful how you answer that," Draco advised.

Theodore just said, "It's not a big deal."

"It is," Hermione said. She turned back to the boy and took a deep breath. "Your narrow-minded, judgmental bullshite has no place anywhere near here," she began.

"Death Eater lover," the boy said, cutting her off. "Who cares what you think?" He snickered. "I hear Professor Weasley even refuses to teach you anymore. I hear - "

"You heard wrong," Hermione said. "You may find this hard to believe, but after a year fighting Voldemort - "

Draco smiled at how the boy flinched at her unapologetic use of the monster's self-selected name.

" - I'm a little ahead of the curriculum." She took a step closer the boy, shaking off Draco's cautioning hand. He and Theodore exchanged looks; they both wanted to stop her but also wanted to see her eviscerate the tosser. "If I was able to destroy a part of Voldemort's soul what do you think I could do to you?"

"I'll go to Headmistress - "

"You do that," Hermione said. "I'd love a chance to see you explain to her how you called your fellow students names that should get your mouth washed out with soap." A flick of her wand hand the boy spitting bubbles onto the floor as his eyes widened. "You go ahead." Another flick of her wand and she added. "You can explain to her how you got the mark on your arm."

Still spitting out soap and nearly gagging the boy dropped his school bag and, getting frantic now, pushed up the sleeve of his shirt. Draco noted their adversary was so slovenly in his dressing he didn't even need to unbutton his cuffs and, as incongruous as it was to think such a thing as his girlfriend drew a crowd with her pent-up hexing, he couldn't help but think his mother wouldn't have approved. Unbuttoned shirt cuffs were for public appearances when you had your sleeves rolled to subtly indicate you were one of the common people and for no other time at all.

They did make it easier for the boy to examine his arm. Draco wondered if the 'bigot' that was written on his arm in crude black letters had hurt to get.

"Manage to control your mouth for a month," Hermione said softly, "and it might fade. Maybe." She shrugged. "I've never done that before though, so hard to tell." She looked around at the gaping faces of her fellow students. "Anyone else have an opinion on Theodore's sexuality or my dating preferences they'd like to express?" No one said anything though Draco could see heads with wide eyes shaking.

"Good," Hermione said. She stalked off, Draco and Theodore following in her wake, as speechless as the rest of the onlookers.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Well, you knew she had to snap eventually._**


	120. Chapter 120

After Hermione's confrontation with their slur-wielding classmate, Draco and Theodore hustled her back to their room where they exchanged glances and Theodore stepped out, murmuring he'd be in the common room if they wanted him.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked hesitantly. Hermione had stomped - actually stomped - through the halls and her shoulders were hunched up around her ears and she had her jaw clenched in a way that suggested the answer was, 'no', but he wasn't sure how to start the conversation and didn't want her to tear into him the way she'd shredded their classmate.

Of course, the tosser had deserved it.

"I'm so angry," burst out of her mouth. "I'm angry at that stupid boy, I'm angry at…did I tell you they put a sign on my door? 'Death Eater's Whore'. I just left it, figured someone would get embarrassed and take it down and then I was too proud to acknowledge it and - "

"What?" Draco could feel himself getting angry as well.

" - but it just hung there and hung there until Pansy pulled it down and told them all where they could shove it."

"You just left it there?" Draco was still processing. "And you never told me?"

"And I'm angry at Ron," she went on, ignoring him. "How dare he slander me? How dare he? We were friends! And his stupid, worthless mother and her stupid, worthless class. 'Let's all memorize these 200 plants that can be used in the Dark Arts and what their counters are and by the way here's some wrong information about the Patronus and now go off and make me look good by getting good scores on your N.E.W.T.s, and - "

"Hermione." Draco tried to interrupt her tirade.

" - McGonagall with her 'Oh, you can just do independent study because Merlin forbid I deal with the fact my Defense teacher is incompetent _again_ , and - "

"Hermione." He tried again to no avail.

" - and my cat is missing and Fred's gone and I never get to see Harry and this stupid scar itches half the time and you haven't even told your parents about us!"

With that she stopped and sagged. He watched her sit on his bed and then curl up on it and then heard her say, again, "You haven't even told your parents. They think they can fix you up with some fourteen-year-old girl who can sing in Italian."

Draco nodded. "It's not fair," he said. "It's not fair about your House and it's not fair about Professor Weasley and it's not fair about McGonagall or your cat or Fred or any of it."

"I know," she said softly, all the anger having leaked out of her leaving her deflated and sad. "Whoever said life was fair, right?"

Draco looked at her and then pulled a sheet of parchment out of a drawer and took a quill and dipped it in the ink well and began to write. She watched him in silence for a bit, then propped herself up on an elbow and asked, "What are you doing?" He didn't answer at first, just blew on the ink and waited for it to dry. Then he passed the sheet over to her without a word.

 _Mum and Dad_ , she read. _I am pleased to write and tell you that Miss Hermione Granger has accepted my suit for her hand and has agreed to be my wife. I'm sure you are as thrilled as I am and ready to welcome her with open arms. We will see you at Easter. With love and respect, Draco._

 _P.S. The Pygmy is growing on me, not least because its chirping makes Theodore mental. I've named it Clem because it reminds me of the purple clemantis in your garden, mum._

Hermione looked up at him. "Clem?" was all she said.

Clem chirped happily from its cage. Draco had added a soft bed for the thing to sit on and it looked about as smug as a purple puff ball could look.

"Clem," Draco said. "He looks like a Clem, don't you think?"

"How can you tell Clem's a 'he'?" Hermione asked.

"I think it's obvious," Draco said. "Walk with me to the owlrey to mail this?"

Hermione handed the parchment back to him. "I love you," she said.

"I love you, too," he said. "And if I find out who put that note on your door - "

"You can't curse someone," she said, suddenly scared. "Draco, if they think you're - "

"I know," he said. "I know what people think of me and I know what the consequences would be if anyone thought I was throwing around Dark curses. I was going to say I will use all the resources at my disposal as a bloody well filthy rich bastard to make sure their life is ruined." He took her hand. "No job. No prospects. And they'll never know why." He squeezed her hand. "I'm a messed up head case, but I'm also a rotten prick and no one hurts you."

They were halfway out the door before he murmured again, "No one."

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello!_**


	121. Chapter 121

Hermione waited, tensed against the Howler she expected Draco's parents to send. Instead, Narcissa sent Draco a brief note that never mentioned his engagement and instead focused on her plans to have a party for seventh and eighth year students over the Easter holidays and did he have anyone else he'd like her to include in her invitation list.

He tossed the parchment down on the breakfast table with a sigh and said, "So that's how she's going to play it.

Pansy picked it up and quickly skimmed the short note. "Ah, it's the 'let's not acknowledge things we don't care for' technique. My mother did that for years with my father's mistress. She'd have the woman and her husband over for dinner and never admit she knew they were slipping off to Italy every other weekend. 'He has a lot of love to give' I heard her say once." Pansy screwed up her face in a grimace of distaste. "Family."

"That's… really?" Ginny asked. "I think my mum would chop my father's… well, you know… off if he tried something like that."

"I think she probably already has," Pansy muttered, glancing up at the head table where Molly Weasley sat with her dumpy sweater and her stiff spine making what looked like polite conversation with Pomona Spout.

"Pansy," Theo said, "you can't say that." He was trying not to laugh and Susan grinned at him in mutual amusement.

"Just did," Pansy said. "Moving on. Who're you going to tell your mum to put on the guest list, Draco?"

"My brothers?" Ginny suggested. Draco rolled his eyes and was about to say something, presumably rude and presumably about Ronald, and she added quickly, "Well, Percy. And Charlie, if he's home."

"Luna?" Padma suggested. "I know she didn't come back to Hogwarts but I think she'd come to a party." Neville nodded in agreement. He and Hannah had slipped into their seats at the table next to one another and, though they were not touching or holding hands or nuzzling, their close proximity to each other made Theodore tighten his shoulders with what seemed to be determination not to act like a sullen child who'd lost at games.

"Harry," Hermione said, reaching a hand out to touch Theodore's arm. He flashed her a quick smile and relaxed a little.

"Harry. Isn't he like the brother you never had?" Theodore said with relieved and delighted malice. "Can't leave him out."

Draco glared at his friend. "Brother. Right. The kind I can't stand, maybe." He glowered a bit. "Like I needed one more thing to be thankful to Harry Potter for. Wasn't it enough to save the world and keep my family out of prison? Did he have to go and play the hero this way too?"

"I am thinking of a proverb about not looking gift threstrals in the mouth," Hannah said.

"How I wish I couldn't see their creepy mouths," Draco muttered before he rubbed at his head and turned to Hermione. "I am sorry," he said quietly. "My mum… she's… I'm sorry."

Hermione shrugged and twisted the ring on her finger. "Well," she said, only a very small quaver in her voice, "I didn't exactly think she'd send us a flower bouquet and a bottle of champagne to celebrate." She took a deep breath and thought of all the things that Narcissa Malfoy could have done, all the invective she could have spewed. "At least it's not a Howler, right?"

"Right," he said and took her hand and held it in his and for a moment they might have been alone in the crowded Dining Hall as his eyes searched her face and he said, "Happy ever afters don't tend to include the mum showing up with a casserole and a reminder the flower beds need weeding, you know."

Hermione let out a shaky laugh. "I guess we won't have to worry about her showing up unannounced, you're right."

"While you're having sex all over my house," Theodore said, bringing then back to the reality that they were surrounded by people.

"Oh," Ginny said with delight, "You plan to do that too."'

"I think they stole the idea from you," Theo said. "Thank you so much. I can't wait to deal with the fluids they're going to leave all over the upholstery."

Susan nearly spit out her juice and Pansy sniggered. "I know some cleaning charms I could show you," Susan suggested. "For that, specifically, I mean."

"Don't show _me_ ," Theo said. "Show _them_."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy American Thanksgiving._**


	122. Chapter 122

News that the Malfoys planned to invite all the seventh and eighth years to their Manor over the holiday for a 'little party' spread through the school faster than any warning to stay away from the third floor corridor ever had. While there were some grumbles that the much hated family was just trying to buy their way back into respectability, and a few students were heard declaring they'd never set foot in any party hosted by Death Eaters, for most the allure of any large, student gathering outweighed politics.

"I mean," one girl said, 'It's just at their _house_. It's not like going means you've signed up to join you-know-who."

"Right?" said her friend. "How many chances in your life do you get to go be inside a place like that for real? Not on some Merlin-forsaken garden tour your mum's dragged you on but as a guest?"

In the wake of the news of the party, Draco regained some of his swagger. He smirked. He teased. He flirted outrageously with Hermione in the corridors and, if that joie de vivre was ever temporarily punctured by snide comments from the holdouts about Death Eaters and "how are your _Marks_ this term, Malfoy?", he'd quickly regain his composure and, with an arm flung around Hermione send the would-be bully scurrying off with just an eyebrow tweaked upward.

Harry was informed by Ginny that he would be attending, something he groused about privately in an owl to Hermione. _I've had enough of Malfoy Manor for multiple lifetimes,_ he wrote. _Watching that git's mother look down her nose at you doesn't sound like fun and I'll have to pretend to like your boyfriend again. Honestly, Hermione. Krum never spoke. McClaggan was an idiot. Ron's going to make me mental if he doesn't find his own place soon, and now Malfoy. Why can't you ever date someone simple and easy. Neville. Date Neville._

Hermione almost choked on her tea when she read that and, when Draco and Theodore demanded to know what was so funny, she refused to share. She did pass the note to Pansy who snickered herself. "He's not the brightest star in the sky, is he?" she asked and Hermione agreed with a roll of her eyes.

The day that the invitations arrived a flurry of owls dropped them off over breakfast and eager hands ripped open the thick linen envelopes with their red wax seals and drew out the cards within. "Formal dress," whispered one girl in delight.

"Formal?" A boy groaned. "I have to wear _dress robes_? But I just wore them to the Yule Ball!"

"Live music?" There was a squeal from the Hufflepuff table.

"We can bring dates," breathed out one girl. The news that all the invitations, indeed, included a 'plus one' made fifth and sixth years, who hitherto had taken refuge in the self-righteous 'I'd never go to a Death Eater party' camp sit up and pay attention. Girls who had never before been the object of male attention suddenly had multiple swains courting them. Boys were subject to batted eyes and giggles at every turn.

"This is hilarious," Pansy said, sucking on the end of a quill as she watched the antics from a seat in the library. Her half-finished Herbology essay lay on the table in front of her, its detailed discussion of night-time pollinators illustrated by a tiny sketch she'd done in the margin.

"Who are you bringing as a date?" Hermione asked.

"Nice try," Pansy said. "But I'm not that easy to trick." She let out a dramatic sigh. "No, I'll be going alone and shall have to content myself with such other boys as are there without dates."

"I think Ginny's brothers are going to be there," Hermione said. "Percy'll be stiff and humorless, and I think Charlie is going be home for the holiday and she said he'll probably go just to avoid arguing with his mum about moving back to Britain."

"That'll be nice," Pansy said. "Two dance partners, plus Theo and Draco, so four. Maybe I'll even corner Potter into a dance. That might be amusing."

"You are a wicked, wicked woman," Hermione told her.

Pansy just shrugged.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, lovely people! As I have said many times, my readers and reviewers are the nicest people in fandom. Thank you all for being so wonderful._**


	123. Chapter 123

"You ready?"

Theodore stood right outside the gates of Hogwarts, at the boundary of the apparition wards, his long scarf around his neck and a flower arrangement Neville had put together for him from the greenhouses in his hands. Hermione didn't think the question was really directed at her. Theodore had been on edge since they had chosen the day to do this and his mood had spilled over to first Draco and then her and they'd snapped at one another through their Defense studies until Clem had begun a series of rapid, angry chirps that had forced them to back down, breathe more deeply, and apologize to one another.

"If you are," was all she said as she watched the lanky young man close his eyes and swallow hard. "How long has it been?" she asked.

"I spent a bit of last summer sitting on her grave getting thoroughly pissed," he said. "If spilled whiskey could resurrect the dead, we'd have an inferi problem on our hands."

"Inferi are created by a Necromancer," Hermione said, her own nerves turning her into the babbling textbook Ron had always found most annoying. She could hear herself going on about something no one cared about but couldn't seem to make her mouth stop moving. "Gellert Grindelwald wanted to create an army of Inferi to do his bidding but never succeeded. He thought he'd need the Resurrection Stone but that was false as Voldemort successfully created such a group in the First Wizarding War without the aid of the Stone, mostly from vagrant Muggles, but also - "

"Work on your improvements to that Weasley woman's syllabus on your own time," Theodore said. She flushed but he had a fond smile on his face rather than the look of unbridled irritation Ron - and even Harry - has usually sported when she'd started going on about something. "What do you plan to do with your incessant research into the Dark Arts and how to fight them anyway? Become an Auror?"

She shuddered. "I think I like my Dark Wizards wholly academic," she said. "I've had enough of the real ones."

"Probably a good call," he agreed. He balanced his flower arrangement in one hand and held the other out to Hermione. "Ready?" he asked again.

"Whenever you are," she said and, as soon as she took his hand she felt the familiar, unpleasant sensation of apparition. When they dropped out of the void they were took a few quick steps before regaining their balance and she looked around. They stood outside a wrought iron fence that surrounded a small burial ground. A few dozen headstones, most covered in moss and worn to the point of illegibility, tilted and leaned in what had been meant to be orderly lines and a stone bench sat in one corner, partially covered in snow where an overhanging tree had kept it in shade.

"Nott family burial plot," Theodore said, sounding uncomfortable. "Public cemeteries are for the hoi polloi, you understand."

Hermione nodded and made a little shooing gesture. "I'll wait here," she said. "Go on."

He slipped through the half-open gate and brushed the last bits of snow off the top of the newest headstone before setting his flowers down in front of it and squatting down to trace his fingers over the name carved in the stone. "Calla Nott, Beloved Wife and Mother."

"Dad says hullo," he said after a long moment of silence. "He's… he's sorry for everything, I think. Not that it matters." Hermione saw him wipe at his eyes before going on. "I miss you, Mum. Hermione came with me. You'd like her, I think. Swotty as hell, of course, and, worse, a Gryffindor, but a good sort. She and Draco are going to move in, keep me sober and all. Stupid tossers tell me it's because they're too cheap to rent their own flat but you know Draco, more galleons than sense, so that's not it." He took a deep breath. "I miss you so much, Mum. I was glad you missed the war and didn't have to see that, but now it's over and you're still gone and I miss you so much. I miss you so much. I read the books you used to read to me and try to remember your voice. It gets harder every year and now… now I don't even know if I just think I remember you or if I actually do." He ran his fingers along the name one more time and whispered, "I love you," before he stood up and strode back out of the family plot.

"Let's go," he said to Hermione. She took his hand without a word and they apparated away, back to Hogwarts.


	124. Chapter 124

Padma poked at the eggs rather listlessly and Hermione had to agree with her apparent assessment of the day's breakfast. The eggs were yellow, true enough, and had been scrambled, but they had also congealed into something that looked a bit like eggs but was far more reminiscent of a herbology project with fungus gone horribly, horribly wrong. The toast was cold and dry. The tomatoes were mushy, as if they had suffered a light freeze.

"Maybe there's something better in the kitchens?" Hannah suggested, one eye on Padma as she made a show of pushing her own plate away. "This is barely edible."

"I agree," Hermione said. She stood up and Hannah followed. "You coming?" she asked Padma, who had yet to take a bite.

"I could just wait for lunch," Padma said. "I'm not that hungry."

"Oh, come have a spot of tea with us and keep us company," Hannah said. "Everyone's starting to do nothing but study for N.E.W.T.s and we never get to see you anymore."

Padma frowned and Hermione expected her to refuse to join them but instead she picked up her bag and said, "Well, for a few minutes. I just have so much work."

"The Healer-track," Hannah said in commiseration as they walked out of the Dining Hall. "I thought about it but you need so many N.E.W.T.s , and that's just the start. All the apprenticeships, all the interning. You go for years with barely enough to get by and no sleep and you've been doing a twenty-four hour shift and… it's not for me."

"Funny," Padma said. "Most people just say they can't handle the blood."

"After last year I think we can all handle blood," Hannah said. Words fled as they grimly considered that to the sound of their feet walking on the stone floors. Hannah added, a note of levity in her voice, "Plus, my cycle's almost always heavy, so it's not like blood would be weird to me anyway."

"I have amenorrhea," Padma said. "Have since the war. I should get it looked at but it's hard to want to fix not bleeding. Feels like a bit of a holiday to be honest."

"Must be nice," Hannah said. "I swear, I could soak through an actual cloth nappy."

When they reached the kitchen the elves scurried away from Hermione faster than usual and she stifled a frustrated groan. They were never, ever going to forgive her. She was fairly sure they were hiding her knitting needles when they fetched her laundry and cleaned her room. The other day she'd gone looking for the needles and found them on the very back of the shelf of her closet, behind a pile of Weasley jumpers she didn't feel right wearing given how things were. She'd meant to buy more, just so she had some to wear to keep warm in the drafty castle, but that would be admitting she'd never be accepted by Molly Weasley again, and acknowledging she'd well and truly burnt that bridge hurt, so she stayed cold.

"Toast?" Hannah asked one of the elves. "And tea, if you have water hot?"

Water was hot and tea was made and slices of raisin toast dripping with butter were slid in front of the three girls and Hannah asked Padma a question about her study habits and Padma took a tiny bite of the toast before she answered. Another question, another bite of toast, another sip of tea. Hannah kept bombarding Padma with questions as she exchanged a knowing look with one of the elves, who nodded with the tinest bob of her head and then kept slipping pieces of toast onto Padma's plate so as soon as the girl finished one another would appear. By the time Hannah had run out of steam, Padma had eaten four slices of the bread and started on a fifth.

She looked from Hannah to the elf, who was suddenly very busy fussing with a pot of rosemary, to Hermione, who flushed. "You are all very kind," she said.

"We're your friends," Hannah said.

"We worry," Hermione said.

Padma looked at the last, unfinished slice of toast and said, "I know it's a problem. I'm trying, I really am. It's just… it's hard to remember to eat and then I haven't eaten in so long it hurts and food isn't appealing at all and I have to force it down. Sometimes I feel like my whole relationship with food is 'have I eaten enough today to not have to eat any more'." She picked up the tea cup and swirled it around. "Drinking tea helps, I guess."

"If you need anything," Hannah began but Padma shook her head and they sat in silence as they finished their tea.


	125. Chapter 125

Draco leaned up against the bookshelf, one of the many he and Hermione had sat in front of and passed books from hand to hand over the previous summer. Funny to think how much he'd resented her presence in what he'd thought of as his safe haven. Now, watching the way she chewed on the end of a quill as she contemplated her work, he felt grateful she'd fled to the same refuge he had. Hogwarts, home to all the lost boys and girls.

He almost forgave himself for letting the Death Eaters in. Almost.

It was a lot better than he'd felt about it in July and August when no amount of toil seemed sufficient to expiate his sins.

The diamond on the witch's hand caught a sunbeam and flashed and Clem, who had been in a mood and had refused to stop chirping until he'd been removed from his cage and permitted to sit on Draco's shoulder, made a tiny sound of protest at the bright light and Hermione looked up and smiled at him, rolling her eyes with an exaggerated grimace at the sight of the tiny purple creature he'd brought with him.

"Honestly," she hissed at him as he sat down next to her. "Bringing that thing into the library? What were you thinking?"

"He wouldn't shut up," Draco said.

She reached a finger out and rubbed the top of Clem's head and sighed. "Bullied by a puff of purple. What's happened to the Draco Malfoy I used to know?"

I saw a snake eat a teacher, Draco thought. I saw you be tortured. I learned what fear was, and pain, and hopelessness. I saw a friend die in the fires of hell, screaming for someone to save him.

"Guess I grew up," he said. "People do say that happens."

She had a letter from Harry Potter - my 'brother', Draco thought with a grimace - half tucked into a book and he touched it and quirked an eyebrow at her. "You told him?" he asked. "About us? The engagement?"

She looked surprised. "Of course I did. First thing." He must have looked nervous because she sighed and set her quill down so she could turn and give him her full attention.

"Potter and I aren't exactly friends," he said.

"He said congratulations," she said. "That's all. No lecture, no how could you, no 'but Hermione it's Malfoy'." She watched him with those brown eyes that sometimes saw too much and said, "I'm sure he would have preferred it if Ron and I had worked out."

"He's the hero," Draco said.

"He is," she admitted. Draco could feel himself begin to slouch because it was true. Ron Weasley had a badly dressed harpy of a mother and he'd made accusations to the paper Draco wasn't sure he'd ever be able to forgive, but when it had really mattered he'd been bravery personified. It was galling to have to admit, even if only in the privacy of his own mind, that Weasley was the better man. Hermione leaned over to whisper in his ear. "I love you, you know."

"I certainly hope so," Draco said. "I understand there's a 14-year-old waiting in the wings if you decide to dump me though, so I've got options."

Hermione hit him in the arm but she was laughing as she did it. "Right," she said. "Options." Clem began to chirp again and Draco tried to hush the little creature but it ignored him utterly and Madam Pince gave them both a look, peering over the edge of her glasses with a clear command to shut that thing up or leave. If it had been anyone but the pair of them she'd have marched over and thrown them bodily from the library for bringing the Pygmy Puff in at all.

Hermione began to pack up her things. "Let's go see Ginny," she said. "Maybe Clem is lonely for another fluff ball and he can play with hers for a bit while you two talk about Quidditch strategies and I finish this essay."

Draco took her hand in his as she hoisted her bag up to her shoulder. "This weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend," he said.

"Valentine's Day," she said.

"Would you go with me?" he asked. "Just you and me, no Theo, no Ginny, no little girls?"

"Walk in the snow to pay for tea we could have for free here?" she teased.

"Get out of the castle?" he said. "I promise not to put snow down your back."

"Well," Hermione said, "In that case, yes." They were halfway to Gryffindor Tower, hand in hand walking to the sound of the increasingly loud Clem, before she added, "I, however, make no such promises."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Just a housekeeping reminder that while I'll have chapters ready to post from my phone over the next two weeks, I'll be away from my computer and unable to respond to much (and certainly unable to address and spelling/grammar/typo issues until I get back). Tumblr sometimes allows me to answer asks from their mobile app so I'll try to answer questions from that, but if I don't it's not because I'm ignoring you, it's technology limitations._**


	126. Chapter 126

Hermione ran into the Recovery Group meeting, a little out of breath and little late, a Muggle textbook held between her hands. She dropped the book on a low table in front of Padma and then sank down on the couch next to Draco. "I think that's what you want," she said.

"What is it?" Pansy eyed the heavy book with its glossy grey cover and abstract photograph of a pile of black stones with distrust. Padma had already picked the hefty tome up and was eagerly scanning the table of contents.

"It's a book on treating a particular type of mental illness," Hermione said.

"A _Muggle_ book?" Pansy asked.

"We don't have any good treatments," Padma said without looking up. "Look at Neville's parents. It's been almost twenty years and there's been no improvement; all we do is treat the symptoms and keep them comfortable."

Hannah took Neville's hand to comfort him and he murmured, "It's okay, Han. Padma and I have been talking about some ideas she has for bringing Muggle ideas to St. Mungo's."

Padma still hadn't looked up as she flipped through pages in the book Hermione had brought her. "And what about Lockhart? It's as if we're content to just let him sit there and babble on about nothing." She frowned, face still down. "I mean, I haven't met him, only gotten my hands on some reports thanks to my mum and dad, but it seems like everyone's just given up."

"It's dangerous to undo a memory charm of that magnitude," Hermione said softly and then it was Draco's turn to squeeze her hand in sympathy.

Padma looked up. "I'm sorry," she said. "But your parents… you tell me they're happy. They're functional. I know it's awful for you but, yes, in their case the risk of meddling in their brains again seems to outweigh the potential gain. But Lockhart? He can't live on his own, requires constant care. It's a totally different situation."

"Well," said Theo. "I guess we know what Padma's off to after Hogwarts. She's going to take St. Mungo's by the tail and transform it."

The woman blushed but said, "I know I still have a lot of studying to do - "

"No," Theo said. "You're brilliant."

"It just seems stupid to reject Muggle advances," Padma said. "I know everyone says, 'Oh, they're Muggle, they do it that way because they don't have magic' but magic isn't _helping_ a lot of people." She looked down again. "I wonder if people who have been so profoundly harmed by magic end up not responding to magical treatments because they _are_ magical."

"Brilliant," Theo said again. He leaned back in his chair. "So… Padma's going to revolutionize medicine, Pansy's going to breed kneazles, Ginny's going to play professional Quidditch. What about the rest of us? Anyone else have post-Hogwarts plans more interesting than my 'mope around my giant house' agenda?"

"I will also be moping around your giant house," Draco said. "I anticipate periodic summons to dine with my parents to break up the monotony with painfully tense meals."

"Good times," Hermione muttered. "I can hardly wait."

"I'm just going to get a job in Hogsmeade," Hannah said. "Maybe at the pub. I like being around people and that seems like a good way to do that without having to go on to do more school." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm done with school."

"Professor Spout offered me an internship in Herbology," Neville said. "I'll probably live down in Hogsmeade and walk up here to work with her every day."

"How about you?" Theo leaned forward and touched Susan on the knee. "Job? Internship? Running off to be an artist's model in Paris?"

Susan giggled a little at his last suggestion but said, "I don't think I'm pretty enough for that."

"Au contraire," Theo said. "Vous êtes la plus jolie fille à Hogwarts."

"Also," she said, "I don't speak French."

"That could be a problem," Theo admitted.

Susan sighed and tugged at a thread on the edge of her trousers before admitting she didn't know where she was going to go. "I only came back because I had nowhere else to go," she said softly. "And when this is gone, I don't know what I'll do next. I suppose my family, such as they are, will let me stay with them long enough to save money to get my own place."

"The family that told you to get over it, stiff upper lip, and all that?" Theo asked in obvious disbelief. When Susan nodded that, yes, those were the ones, Theo let out a rude snort. "Bugger that," he said. "You can stay at Nott Manor until you figure out what you want to do."


	127. Chapter 127

"Sweets?" Draco asked as they stood outside Honeydukes. Hannah and Neville had already gone inside and were studying the contents of one rack as though they held the answers to all life's questions but Hermione shook her head. They ended up at Madame Puddifoots Tea Shop, which seemed more pink than usual because she had added floating hearts that hovered above the tables and periodically let forth a stream of tinny music. Draco eyed the hearts with annoyance but Hermione waved them away and they drifted off on the air currents to annoy other people and soon, like most of the rest of the teenagers in the steamy, crowded shop they were holding hands and exchanging light kisses over their tea and cake.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Draco murmured as he used his fork to cut a bit of the pink cake and hold it to Hermione's lips.

She looked embarrassed at the gesture but he said, "Oh, let me be romantic. Theo's not around to puncture the mood with his comments and we can pretend we're just another pair of sixth or seventh years from ten years ago without a care in the world."

"That would have been nice," Hermione said, licking some frosting from her lips and considering what it would have been like to learn magic in a world that thought they were at peace and the devil banished back to his hell. She wished she could have been that naive at sixteen. She wished she could have spent seventeen holding hands like this with a boy whose worst scar was the place he'd fallen off a Quidditch broom onto a rock. Instead she looked up at the man with a smile that grew haunted when he thought no one was looking and, like all of them, more scars than she could count. "I think I like this, though," she said, squeezing his hand.

He smirked at her. "What's not to like?" he asked.

It was a shame what happened next, Hermione supposed, since Madame Puddifoot ended up calling them hooligans and trouble-makers and told them they weren't welcome to return. Ever. But when the boy in a Gryffindor scarf called her a Death Eater's whore under his breath Draco reached a foot out and tripped him. As he leaned down to help the miscreant up he asked his name as he pretended to apologize and the ignorant cad told him, and added a few more names to the list.

That's when things got ugly.

Draco shoved the boy up against the wall where his scarf clashed terribly with the pink decorations and suggested he apologize to the lady at once for his terminology. He reminded the onlookers that Hermione had been instrumental in saving them all. She pointed out from her seat at the table that Draco had been exonerated by the Wizengamot because he'd been underage. He asked the boy whose shirt he still held in a tight grip what, exactly, he'd done the year before to survive.

"Ginny could find out," Hermione suggested. "She always knows everything,"

"Think he tortured kids?" Draco asked her, not letting go.

Hermione shrugged. "If Ginny doesn't know, Andrew and Sari will." She smiled at the boy who'd made the mistake of giving her looks that clearly pleaded for help. "How comfortable are you with letting them do to you whatever you did to them?"

"I'd be fine with that," Draco said. He tightened his grip. "I was good at pulling my curses. How about you?"

"Bastard," the boy spit out.

"Quite legitimate," Draco corrected the boy. "Now, do you plan to apologize to Miss Granger or do I - "

What he was going to threaten to do, however, was never made clear as that was when the shop's proprietress shoved her way through the crowd of onlookers and ordered Draco Malfoy, as well as the boy he'd been addressing, to leave. Hermione was invited to get out with her trouble-making beau and never return as well. She did, sweeping out the door with an arrogant toss of her scarf that wouldn't have looked out of place on Narcissa Malfoy.

Once back in the dirty, snow-covered street, Draco took her hand and began muttering an apology but she stopped him, flinging her arms around his neck and, in full view of the windows filled with staring students, kissed him far less politely than she had over tea.

When she was done he pushed his hair back out of his face and said just one word. "Wow."

"Let's go back to the castle," Hermione said.

"Theo's probably in our room," Draco warned her.

"I, however, do not have a roommate," Hermione said. She smirked. "After that display, I assume you're willing to brave Gryffindor Tower?"

"Lead on," Draco said with a smug grin.


	128. Chapter 128

"The wards?" Draco asked Hermione as they stood outside the portrait hole.

"I might have disabled them," Hermione said with the tiniest of smirks. At his incredulous look she shrugged. "Best student in our year and all, and I like to be prepared."

When Draco and Hermione reached her room she pushed her still-wet boots off and dropped her cloak over a chair. Draco, who'd been entertaining fantasies of what was to come the whole walk back from Hogsmeade, suddenly couldn't manage to untie his shoes and fumbled with the jumper he pulled off over his head until he stood there, in socks with his fine hair electrified by the wool he'd pulled over it and left poking out in every direction. Hermione rescued him from his awkward stance by putting her hands on each side of his face and pressing her mouth to his.

"I take it you liked it when I - " he mumbled around her lips.

"Defended me to that jerk?" she asked. "Yes. Yes, you could say I liked that."

She began to undo the buttons on his shirt and, taking careful steps back toward her bed, she pulled him after her until she'd stumbled backward onto the mattress and he lay sprawled half on top of her. She traced her fingers over the scar that remained from one curse, then touched tiny white spots where he'd become too familiar with sparks of fire in the final battle. He watched her make what he had always thought of as a history of failure into pieces of him she made as beautiful as she was.

Alchemy.

He ran his fingers along one of her curls. It was wet where snow had clung to it on their walk back and a tiny droplet of water clung to his hand. He asked her, afraid he'd misread her intentions, "Are you sure?"

She tugged off her own jumper and began to unbutton her shirt. "If you are," she said.

"Oh, I am," he said, licking his lips as the fabric fell away from her shoulders to reveal a pink satin bra. "I just don't want to - "

"You know how to do a contraceptive charm, right?" she asked and he felt a lurching in his gut and a rush of blood as she confirmed that she really was thinking the same thing he was.

He reached a hand out and felt the smooth pink fabric. "Yeah," he said. "I might have practiced that a few times." Her nipple sprang to attention under his touch and she gasped as he brushed his fingers back and froth across it. He lowered his mouth to the fabric and experimented with what would happen if he used his tongue on the fabric instead of his fingers and learned that satin did not taste especially good and that she began to make tiny sounds at his touch. He reached behind her to unhook the bra, pulled it off, and determined that he liked the taste of her far more than her clothing. She whimpered when he began to lick at the sensitive flesh and grabbed his hair with a grip that hurt.

"Do the charm," she muttered and he fumbled for his wand and did it twice to be sure. Heirs were good, of course, but not yet.

When he was done she'd gotten the rest of her clothes off and had her hands at the button of his trousers. As soon as she had them undone he pulled them off with what was probably unseemly haste, and his pants after, and he shucked off the shirt that still clung to his shoulders. He was about to try to figure out the best way to angle himself on top of her when she began to giggle.

"What?" he asked.

"You still have your socks on," she said through another giggle. He gave her a mock frown and reached down to tug them off. When he straightened back up she gave him a shy look. "I've never done this," she said. "Even thought we've… I've still nervous."

"Me either," he said. "And me too."

"You were really incredible in that shop," she said. He pulled himself forward and she slid down until she was under him on her bed.

"I'm glad you thought so," he said. A smirk blossomed on his face. "I probably should have used smaller words with that cretin, though. I'm not sure he quite followed me." He reached a hand down to brush against her and she spread her legs for him. "Merlin, Hermione," he muttered as he felt her. "You're - "

"I really, really liked seeing you tell that rotter off," she said.

"I guess," he said in awe. "Should I?" He positioned himself and, when she nodded, he did.


	129. Chapter 129

Susan straggled into the Recovery Group meeting more than a few minutes late. She flopped down on the couch next to Hannah and grabbed a handful of carrot sticks from a tray, eyeing them with her nose wrinkled though she didn't otherwise comment on the unusually healthy snack offering.

Clem chirped and, with a sigh, Draco passed the Pygmy Puff over to Susan who took the tiny creature and settled him on her lap where he snuggled into her skirt and made a series of contented snorts before seeming to fall asleep.

"He's getting fatter," Susan commented. "I swear he's heavier every time I hold him."

Draco shrugged. "I just keep the food dish full, he said.

"I might slip him treats," Theodore admitted. "But he just chirps until you do so, if I want peace to study in my own room, I have to bribe Draco's familiar."

"He is not my familiar," Draco said quickly. "Just a pet. Just a pet."

"Uh huh," said Pansy from where she was lounging in one of the chairs. "I think you and the puff ball have a special bond. He's meant for you. All fluffy and purple."

"I could kill you," Draco suggested and Pansy laughed and flipped a carrot stick at his head.

"How goes N.E.W.T. studying?" Ginny asked. Shrugs and disgruntled noises and muttered opinions that assorted professors were clearly unreasonable in the work load they assigned met her question.

"Especially Professor Granger over here," Theodore said,. " She and Draco basically argue the entirety of what passes for a Dark Arts class -

" _Defense_ against the Dark Arts," Hermione interjected.

" - and then tell us to go look it up ourselves."

"Not true," Susan said. "I like sitting in on their discussions. None of the research is busy work and the way they have different ways of looking at things is really interesting." She ran her finger down Clem's back. "I think I've learned more from their arguments than I did in the last seven years of the class."

"Oh, fine." Theodore said. "Defend the miserable swots." He leaned back and glanced up at the ceiling and asked far too casually, "How are you doing, anyway, Sue? Any panic attacks? Incipient alcoholism?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"They being okay to you?" Padma asked. She hadn't said anything until now, just nibbled on a carrot stick and curled up in a chair. When everyone gave her startled looks she said, her voice still soft, "Do what you want, Susan, but if any of your partners aren't being good to you, you'd let us know, right?"

"Define 'good'," Susan said.

"No one's… it's all consensual, right?" Hermione asked her.

Susan shrugged. "Sure," she said. "I'm just the village bicycle at this point. People ask if they can use me, they know they answer will be yes, but, sure, they go through the motions of asking."

Hannah cringed and put a hand on Susan's shoulder. "Susan," she began but the other woman shook her hand off with a violent motion that work Clem, who chirped in protest before settling down again.

"Get back to me when everyone you loved is dead," she said. "Get back to me then with your 'Susan's and your concern that oh-so-subtly masks that you think I'm a slag."

"I don't," Theodore said.

"She does," Susan said, glaring at Hannah.

"Susan," Hannah said again but the woman scooped up Clem and handed him back to Draco and, grabbing her back, stormed out of the room. "I don't," Hannah said to the closed door. "I don't think… I'm just worried." She looked around at the other eighth years and said to their accusing faces, "She's just not careful. Sooner or later someone's going to assume she means yes when she says no because Susan always says yes and then it's going to be bad."

"It's already bad," Pansy said. "I hear what people say when they think none of her friends are listening." She sighed. "When they call Hermione a whore they're trying to be nasty. When they call Susan a whore they're just… it's what they think she is."

Theodore pushed himself to his feet and started to leave.

"You'll be gentle?" Pansy asked him, knowing the answer.

"If there's one boy in all of Hogwarts she has to know isn't after her ," Theodore said, "it would be me." He opened the door and went out in the corridor and began to look for Susan.


	130. Chapter 130

It took Theodore almost an hour to find Susan. She'd hidden herself in a nook in the library that had once held, if he recalled properly, a pretentious bust of a wizard no one cared about. Now it held a broken seat Madam Pince had dragged out of the way, and the heavy red curtains that had once framed someone's long, historical nose had now been dropped to cover the entire alcove.

Susan had curled up in the settee, her knees pulled up to her chest and her cheek leaning against the back of the seat. She looked, Theodore thought, like nothing so much as a naughty child who'd run off to hide from her piano lesson. Even the sniffling was in character.

"Hey," he said, slipping behind the curtain and tucking it back into place to hide them. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Come for your own tumble?" she asked not looking at him.

"Nah," Theodore said. "I like them a bit more masculine than you." He waved a hand in the direction of her breasts and said, "I mean, what am I supposed to do with those? I weaned a hell of a long time ago."

A tiny giggle might have been muffled into the chair. "That wouldn't make you different from most of the boys here at Hogwarts."

"You're telling me teenage boys not the most skilled lovers?" Theo asked her, before nudging at her. "Shove over and make room."

She did and he squeezed in next to her. "Does it help?" he asked at last.

"Did drinking?"

"For a little while," he admitted. "It made everything numb and I felt something close enough to happiness that if I squinted a little I could pretend."

"Same," she said. "When someone's touching me I'm beautiful and desirable. Someone loves me again, if only for five minutes."

"Five minutes?" Theodore took a small handful of her hair and began twining it into a neat plait. "You weren't kidding about the ineptitude of your partners. Even Draco, assuming I can take what he claims, divide it in half, and get something near the truth, manages more than that."

Susan sniffled again and said, "I didn't need to know that."

Theodore used a sticking charm to prevent his first plait from unravelling, took another section of hair, and started another one. "Get used to it, love," he said. "You'll be living with them. I've been threatened with public sex on the furniture. Start preparing your scathing commentary now."

They sat there for a while, Theodore braiding her hair and Susan moving from sniffles to hiccups. She slowly released her tight grip of the back of the chair and nestled against Theodore's chest and he stopped playing with her hair to wrap an arm around her and listen to her breathe. "You are beautiful," he said at last. "Prettiest girl at Hogwarts."

She snorted.

"I'm a much better judge than most of your pathetic partners," he said. "It's all aesthetics for me. No lust to mess up my eyesight." She made another disbelieving sound and he tightened his arm around her. "Those boys, Sue, they're arseholes. They don't see you. Hell, you don't see you but you're beautiful and kind. Do you remember when you tore into that couple at the Gingers booth on Rebuilding Day? Told them right off for condemning me?"

She made a tiny nod.

"I think I fell for you that day. You're all a girl, of course, so we're stuck being friends because of the whole breasts issue, but you have more love and kindness and forgiveness in one of your pretty little hands than most people do in their whole body. And if anyone - anyone - should hate me, it's you."

"You didn't do anything," she said.

"My dad did," Theodore said.

"We aren't our parents." Her voice choked on the last word and Theodore squeezed her as she began to cry again. "I miss them so much, Theo. So much. It's like there's a hole inside me and it will never be filled and I try and I try and I try and it just gets bigger."

"I know," he said, bending his head over hers. "I know." He took a deep breath and said, "Maybe you've been trying with the wrong group, though, Sue. Maybe instead of miserable, rotten, no-good, teenage boys you should adopt dogs or something."

She shook her head. "Don't like dogs," she sniffled. "They smell."

"Kneazles?"

"Cat hair everywhere, and they scratch up the furniture."

Theodore sighed then said, "I wonder who else has nowhere to go. Who else is dreading the summer because they're off to family they barely know, second cousins they'd never met until last spring."

"It's the worst for the little ones," Susan said. "If you're older you've got friends, usually, whose parents know you, know what's happened, and will take you in." She sounded sadder than ever. "Not me. I think people saw me as some kind of bad luck charm. To lose your whole family and still go back to fight seems - "

"Brave," Theodore said.

"Pragmatic," she said. "What else did I have to lose? I couldn't let him win after all that."

"Brave," he repeated. He sighed. "Do what you want, Sue, but this thing with the arsehole boys isn't helping."

She nodded but whispered, "It's all I have."

He let go of her long enough to tug on her hair. "What am I? Kneazle vomit?"

"You don't want me showing up at all hours feeling like I'm - "

"I do," he said, kissing her hair. "I do, Susan."


	131. Chapter 131

As the days passed and spring crept closer, N.E.W.T. exams uncomfortably close on her heels, Hermione spent more and more time in the library. Draco was commenting, rather sourly, to Theodore that it was as if she thought just being around so many books would cause her to soak up their contents, when Clem began making a series of loud chirps.

"Oh, for the love of… I thought you were going to give that thing to Trista and that lot!" Theodore said with a groan. "What self-respecting man has a Pygmy Puff - a bloody, _purple_ Pygmy Puff at that - for a pet?"

"I should get a monster like Hagrid?" Draco asked. "Maybe a Hippogryff?"

"Very funny," Theodore said. "You could, though, think about something normal like, I don't know, an owl."

"You can talk to me about normal when you aren't wearing a scarf large enough to hide another person under wherever you go," Draco said, smirking at the giant pile of red and gold wool that lay on the lanky man's desk, obscuring whatever homework Theodore probably should have been doing.

"Maybe I do have another person under there," Theodore suggested with a smirk of his own. "Maybe I'm getting all sorts of personal attention, if you know what I mean, while draped in my perfect scarf."

"Uh huh," Draco said. Clem was still chirping and his chirps had gotten both louder and lower, so they were almost a growl, and Draco turned to stare at his tiny pet. "Shite," he said, his eyes getting wide. "Theodore…"

"What?"

"Would you go get Pansy?"

"Why?" Thedore looked over at Clem and his own eyes got wide. "Shite," he said. He nearly fell off the bed in his haste to get to the door and fetch the witch. When he returned Draco was twisting his own scarf in his hands as he stared at Clem.

"What is it?" Pansy demanded. "I'm not going to help you two losers do some essay you've skivved off on, so - "

"Clem," Draco said.

Pansy turned and looked at the Pygmy Puff and began to laugh.

"This is not funny," Draco said, his voice nearly throttled. "Pansy, what do we do?"

She was still laughing but managed to get out, "You don't do anything. You just wait. She knows what to do."

"Clem's not a she. He's a boy," Draco said automatically.

Pansy's laughter increased and she stumbled back to sit on Theodore's bed, tears of mirth streaming down her face she was laughing so hard. "A boy," she gasped out. "I don't think so." Theodore looked at her, nearly howling, and then at Draco, who was ruining his scarf as he twisted it back and forth in his hands. A small smile began to inch its way onto his face, and, after another look at Pansy, he began to laugh too.

"This is not funny!" Draco said again.

"I told you to give that thing away," Theodore said between gasps. "But, no, when it chirped all the damn time you said it was lonely and wanted a friend. You took it to have playdates with Ginny's Puff."

"I'll say she was lonely," Pansy snickered. She was starting to calm down and was wiping the tears away from her cheeks, though bursts of giggles directed at Draco continued to slip out. "Playdates, huh?"

"He was chirping all the time," Draco said defensively.

Pansy squared her shoulders and got up to look at Clem, who was calm and focused in the midst of the hysteria surrounding her. "Looks like everything's fine," Pansy said. "I mean, not that I know anything about Pygmy Puffs, but if what I know about Kneazles can be used here you have a nice, healthy litter of six… no, seven… baby Puffs." She squinted at the cage. "Is Ginny's Puff pink?"

"No, purple," Draco said.

"Huh. Looks like you've both got some pink recessives in your pets then," Pansy said. "I wonder how complicated the genetic encoding for their coloring is. Probably pretty straightforward since they only come in two colors but I wonder if - "

"Recessives?" Theodore interrupted her.

"Recessive genes." She looked back at him and sighed. "You two really need to read more outside Quidditch magazines, wank material, and your textbooks. Basic Mendelian genetics. Duh."

"Basic _what_?" Draco asked.

"Fucking wizards," Pansy said. She turned to Clem and cooed, "This is why I'm going to take over the entire Kneazle market. Yes it is. They don't know anything outside their wands and their dicks. No they don't. HIdebound, conservative idiots, all of them."

Clem cooed back.

"That's right," Pansy said. "You tell them."

"Clem's a girl," Draco said, gobsmacked.

Pansy straightened up and snickered at his expression before she said, "You'd better find out when Pygmy Puffs reach sexual maturity or you might have a real problem on your hands."

Draco was about to ask her what she meant when he looked at his very smug purple Puff, surrounded by seven much smaller, damper puffs, and realized that if one Puff was fine, eight were bad, and, after some rapid math and the assumption that only half of the eight creatures in the cage were female, he whimpered and said, "More. More Puffs."

More puffs would be very, very bad.

"Lots more," Pansy said.

Theodore began to laugh again.

. . . . . . . . . . .

A/N - you are all truly the loveliest and nicest readers in all of fandom, both on your reviews here and your endless kindnesses on tumblr. The morning after wiping up vomit in a hotel bathroom at 1:30 AM I REALLY appreciate y'all. (I don't think its a virus so much as too much junk food.)

Am am I allowed by site rules to do a giveaway to readers? Because I could absolutely get a purple Pygmy Puff at universal to mail off to a randomly selected person as a lame little thank you.

Shayalonnie has started a new Neville/Hermione you probably already know about because she's the person all hp readers must follow, but on the off chance you do not, Safe Word is Devil's Snare. Super smutty, something you don't get from me but at which she is brilliant.


	132. Chapter 132

"So you want to have a bonfire?" Headmistress McGonagall had seemed doubtful when Padma had first proposed the school recognize Holi.

"You bring in a tree for Christmas," Padma had said. "People go _home_ for Easter. It's not as though I'm the only Hindu in all of Hogwarts." She'd smiled the politician's smile Draco had made her practice. "I'm sure you want to acknowledge all the varied cultures that make Hogwarts great." She hadn't missed a beat as she'd added, "It is, after all, a festival that encourages people to let go of their differences as unimportant."

McGonagall had cast an amused eye on the other eighth years lined up behind Padma. "I suppose you'll want me to provide colours for the next day too?"

Now, as March came in "like a lion," as Draco said with some amusement, earning him a half-hearted smack in the arm from Hermione, students gathered around a huge bonfire that had been lit by the lake. Prefects had been threatened with dire consequences if any alcohol were found anywhere near the festivities and the Head Boy and Head Girl had organized patrols to seize any they found and dump it, which they did to loud complaints from the miscreants. "Fire and alcohol don't mix," Draco heard the Ravenclaw prefect lecturing someone.

Younger students had managed to construct an effigy of Holika and if the figure looked a _bit_ more like Voldemort in a pink dress than the sister of an Indian demon king, well no one complained as the figure burned. Indeed, when the head toppled off the body, sending sparks into the air, a raucous cheer filled the air.

"This is great," Hermione said as Padma handed her a glass filled with a drink she'd never had before. "I can't believe we haven't done this every year. And what is this?"

Padma gave her a sidelong glance. "It's a mango lassi. Mostly yogurt. And, really? You can't believe it?"

Hermione didn't answer that; she just squinted at the burning figurine. "What's in her lap?" she asked.

"It's supposed to be Prahlad," Padma said rather dryly. "And made of something that won't burn."

"Looks a bit like Harry," Hermione said. "Though the not burning part seems to have been handled accurately."

Padma sighed as she and Hermione looked at the stone figurine in Holika's lap; it did seem to have round glasses and what might have been a scar on its forehead. "I didn't make them," she said, "But I think the kids who did had fun thumbing their nose at, well, last year."

"Good defeats evil," Draco said, wrapping an arm around Hermione and smiling at Padma. "I think I like this festival."

"And tomorrow we throw colour at each other?" Theodore asked. He continued to find something about the entire festival enchanting. "I get to just smear colored powder on anyone I want?"

"Well, yes," Padma said somewhat uneasily as Theodore smirked at her.

"This is the best festival ever," he said. "Draco, there's no way your mum's proper little ballroom dance party with caterers and everyone in neat and appropriate little dresses will possibly be able to compete with this."

"I am very afraid," Draco said. "Theodore, what are you planning?"

"Nothing," he said. "You are so suspicious."

He didn't do anything outrageous, either. He might have smeared green on more than one child from other Houses, but Andrew and Sari in Gryffindor were more than happy to help him and, by the time it was noon the next day, the courtyards of Hogwarts were filled with laughing students covered in all sorts of colours and kept warm by the charms McGonagall had used to heat all the outdoor areas she'd set aside for the celebration.

"I cannot believe you cancelled classes for this," Molly Weasley said as a pair of younger students in robes they'd charmed in the morning to be white and which were now mostly orange and yellow ran past her; they had water balloons in their hands and based on the splash and shrieking that followed them, they'd managed to hit whomever they'd aimed at. "Minerva, I have to express my concerns that this is not what people expect to see in a school."

Minerva McGonagall looked at the woman she had known for years and with whom she had fought two wars. "Molly," she said, "I think you need to relax."

"It's a Tuesday. It would be one thing if it were a Saturday," Molly said. "This isn't what I'd call academic excellence."

"Neither," the other woman responded, "is grading a student unfairly if she broke off a relationship with your son." She smiled at Molly as the other woman sputtered a little. "I've been meaning to ask you, do you have plans for next year? Travel with Arthur, perhaps? Now that the war is over maybe you two can take a second honeymoon." Minerva sighed rather dramatically as another set of students ran by, one stopping to smear a yellow hand on the Headmistress' sleeve before disappearing into the crowd. "I'd love to take some time to travel but Hogwarts consumes all my energy. I am, as they say, married to education."

"I don't have any plans," Molly said stiffly.

"Too bad," Minerva said. She tilted her head toward Draco and Hermione. "Isn't young love beautiful?"

Draco, dressed all in white, was carefully applying red to one of Hermione's cheeks. The two of them seemed lost in their own world, unaware of the shrieks of younger students running past or the mischievous older ones sneaking up on peers to coat them in as many colours as possible. Water balloons and aguamenti charms had almost everyone drenched. Someone had managed to hold Theodore down long enough for Siri to paint his whole face with red and he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. Though all that Draco and Hermione remained focused only on one another.

Molly sniffed and turned to go back inside but Minerva stayed and managed, quite possibly by means of a charm she made sure students didn't know, to overhear Draco murmur, "I understand this was started by Krishna, who, Padma tells me, put colour on the face of his beloved Radha." Hermione slipped a tiny candy into Draco's mouth as he, still moving in almost slow motion, began to swirl his fingers around her other cheek. "As you are beloved to me."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Thank you to Wesleyey for the idea to include Holi and to readingserpent for beta reading this chapter. Any remaining cultural missteps are, of course, my fault.**

 **Dating: this chapter takes place on the evening of March 1 and the day of March 2, 1999. And, yes, March 2 was a Tuesday in 1999.**


	133. Chapter 133

Time seemed to fly after the Holi celebration and soon it was the last day before the Easter holiday. Hermione and Draco climbed up the many stairs to the Astronomy Tower and tucked themselves into a corner. The whole of Hogwarts was bustling. Younger students were making plans to go home and visit family. Fifth years were, mostly, planning to spend the short break frantically studying for their O.W.L.s. The seventh years alternated between worrying about the N.E.W.T.s they should be studying for and the Ball that would be taking place the _very next night_ at Malfoy Manor. In Gryffindor Tower, Draco was besieged by girls who wanted to know everything about the Manor and how his mother would expect them to behave and they couldn't get through the crowd to slip unnoticed into Hermione's room. Theodore had been in Draco's room, writing a letter to his father and they'd wanted to give him privacy.

"If I have to hear one more girl talk about her dress I may scream," Hermione said. "Am I the only person in the whole school not looking forward to this?"

"Oh, I'm dreading it," Draco said. He wrapped his hands around the back of her neck and leaned into her so their foreheads touched. "My mother will be so very polite. So polite. And she'll refuse to acknowledge you as my fiancee in any way that matters and by the end of the night you'll either be crying or spitting mad."

"Possibly both," Hermione muttered.

She wrapped her own arms around the man and let him support her. "At least Weasley's not going," Draco said.

Hermione stiffened a bit and he bit down on his lip and wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "I think Percy, Charlie, and Ginny will all be there," she said, clearly choosing to ignore his unfortunate reference to her ex.

"That a lot of ginger for one party," Draco said.

"And Harry," Hermione added.

"And Looney," Draco said. "I understand she told Padma she's bringing charms for all of us that she made while at a crafts retreat."

"Lucky us," Hermione said. Then, a hint of devilry entered her voice and she asked, "Do you suppose she's bringing one for the hostess?"

Draco shuddered. In the past week he'd become the proud owner of an entire litter of tiny, chirping puff balls, Theodore was threatening to move in with Pansy if he didn't find homes for them, and now Hermione had raised the very likely possibility that Luna Lovegood would present his mother with some kind of homemade craft that surely included root vegetables and glitter joined together in unholy matrimony.

Slices of preserved radish with silver glitter.

Carrots with runes painted on them in gold.

It was the thought of parsnips with purple sparkles that made Draco start to laugh. Hermione poked at him and, trying to keep quiet, he choked out, "Parsnips. Purple. Glitter."

It was probably a sign of how well the two of them understood one another that Hermione immediately followed his train of thought and began to giggle. "Rutabagas," she said.

"Too big," Draco said.

"If a parsnip isn't too big, neither is a rutabaga," Hermione insisted and then Draco couldn't get rid of the image of his mother gamely accepting a rutabaga necklace that the daft blonde dropped around her neck and having to wear it, bobbing against some designer robe, for the rest of the night.

When they both stopped laughed Hermione, who still hadn't quite caught her breath, said, "It feels good to laugh again."

"Yeah," Draco said. "This year… I'm glad I came back, but - "

"I'm glad you came back too," Hermione said.

He interrupted his thought to kiss her, brushing his lips against her mouth until she tugged on his hair and opened her lips and what he'd meant to be a gentle moment became heated and they both lost interest in Luna Lovegood and her sure to be peculiar charms, the as-yet-unsolved problem of Draco's parents, and root vegetables. Instead they kissed one another until the Tower grew too frigid for them to bear and, with no knowledge of warming charms of the magnitude McGonagall had used for Holi, they gave up and left.

Theodore was out, the puffs were all sleeping, and so Draco and Hermione picked up where they had left off in a space much warmer and more comfortable than the Tower they'd gone to be alone. When Theodore did come back he eyed the couple, by then asleep, and the pile of clothes on the floor, and just freshened the water in the puffs' cage before going to bed himself.


	134. Chapter 134 (Easter Ball: 1 of 8)

Because Draco had to get to his mother's Easter Ball early, and because Narcissa had "suggested" Hermione arrive with the rest of the guests lest she find herself forced to permit the woman to receive with her, and because Hermione had decided she'd rather eat glass than spent long, extra hours at Malfoy Manor with Narcissa Malfoy being polite in her own 'I despise you' way, she'd made Draco swear he wouldn't cut ("Fine, Hermione," he'd said at last, "I'll wait for you to get there. Does that make you happy?") and agreed to travel with Harry and Ginny.

Harry, who was looking forward to this party as much as she was, slouched on an overstuffed chair in the Gryffindor common room with Hermione while they waited for Ginny. He'd come up earlier, spent part of the day flying with Andrew and Sari who'd goggled at getting attention from _the_ Harry Potter, and admired Andrew's broom. The discovery it had been a present from Draco Malfoy had made him laugh. "Now he's equipping Gryffindors too?" he'd asked Ginny.

"He never was that good at strategy," she'd said smugly.

"Nice peacock," Harry said now, eyeing Hermione's hand.

Hermione held her palm out and examined the bird Padma has insisted on doing; she'd drawn it so the bird appeared to be admiring the ring. Subtle it wasn't. Padma apparently had opinions about Draco and Hermione being discreet about their engagement. "I know his mother doesn't mean for this to be an engagement party," she'd said, "but don't be surprised if some of us raise toasts to your happiness."

Hermione had mumbled that wasn't necessary but the truth was she was almost dying to see Narcissa's face when that happened. So far neither Malfoy parent had acknowledged Draco's engagement. Between that and going back to a place she'd been tortured, she'd already downed one Draught of Peace and had a few extra vials tucked away 'just in case'.

Now, as she admired her hand and the peacock Padma had put on it, she said, "Pretty, isn't it?"

"It is," he said. He grinned at her. "Can't wait to see my beloved near-brother again. We can trade Quidditch cards."

"You are such a shite," Hermione said as she grinned back at him.

Ginny sauntered down the hall. "Nice dress," Hermione said. The other girl spun in a neat circle on her heels and stuck a pose in the same red slip dress she'd worn to the Yule Ball before she laughed. "Didn't see any reason to buy another one," she admitted.

Hermione looked down at her pale blue dress with its lace overlay and laughed. "Me either," she said.

Harry stood up and offered Ginny his hand. "Are you two telling me Narcissa Malfoy's little publicity event didn't even rate a shopping trip?"

"That's right," Hermione said. "So many other things to do. Organize my quills. Look up Pygmy Puff breeding cycles - "

Harry snickered.

"Oh," Hermione said. "You heard about that, did you?"

"I did," Harry grinned. "I might have brought Malfoy a little present." He pulled a wrapped book out of a pocket of his cloak and waggled it back and forth. "Contraceptive Charms for your Pets."

Hermione stared at him for a moment and then burst into giggles, though she made a pro forma motion to smack him on the arm.

"Hey," Harry said, as the three of them walked toward the door and began making their way down to the floo in the Great Hall that Headmistress McGonagall had opened up for the partygoers. "Is that any way to treat your soon to be brother-in-law?"

She smacked him again, harder, and he laughed.

When they reached the Hall, McGongall was there handing handfuls of floo powder out and reminding students there would likely be press at this party and to remember that their conduct would reflect on Hogwarts. When she saw Harry her eyes softened. "Mr. Potter," she said. "It's nice to see you."

"Nice to see you too, Professor," he said. Ginny hit him this time. "I mean, Headmistress," he corrected himself.

She smiled at him. "I'm glad to see you and Malfoy finally mending fences," she said. "You have more in common than you don't." Harry must have made a face that expressed his opinion of that because she sighed and said, "You do, Potter. Have a good time at the party and try to stay out of trouble."

"Headmistress," he said, putting hand on his heart as though wounded. "When have you known me to get into trouble?"

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - thank you, loveliest readers in fandom, for your endless kindnesses. This reached the insane number of 13k reviews yesterday and I'm beyond grateful.


	135. Chapter 135 (Easter Ball: 2 of 8)

The floo connection at Malfoy Manor opened up into a large room with servants to take any outerwear guests wished to hang up and a space to clean off any ashes that might have clung to their clothes mid-journey. Hermione felt a bit of smug pleasure that the Malfoys had to rely on human help for gatherings like this. She'd wondered whether they had an army of little house elves left behind after Dobby had been freed, rather like Hogwarts, or whether, when Harry had cost Lucius Malfoy his magical servant, that had caused the arrogant patriarch real pain.

She was pleased at the implication Dobby's liberation had been an actual loss for the Malfoys.

Harry leaned over and whispered, "I guess no house elves feel like taking them on anymore," and Hermione grinned at the way their thoughts had gone to the same place.

She, Harry, and Ginny went out through the door one of the uniformed women opened, each taking a flute of what turned out to be sparkling juice rather than champagne, and then through wide open doors into a ballroom. They'd timed their arrival to be neither late nor early so, while the room was filling with their classmates, it wasn't yet lively and Narcissa and Draco both still stood at the door, receiving all the guests as they arrived.

"Showtime," Harry muttered.

He took Narcissa's hand and cooly shook it before pulling Draco into a hug. Both men clapped one another on the back as Narcissa beamed and the predictable photographer caught the moment for the papers.

Hermione decided that having the press at a private party was gauche.

Hermione decided she liked thinking something Narcissa Malfoy had done was gauche.

"Good to see you, mate," Harry was saying as he and Draco pulled apart. "You still taking care of Hermione for me?"

Hermione marveled at how both men looked for all the world as though they had genuinely missed one another and were pleased to be reunited. "I am," Draco said.

"If you hurt her, of course, I'll kill you," Harry said. The words were affable but Draco nodded, the tiniest of motions, perhaps, but he and Harry had been watching one another since they were eleven and the Chosen One didn't miss the gesture.

"And I'd deserve it," Draco said. "There'll never be a need, however."

"Good." Harry smiled at Narcissa Malfoy again, who had passed this exchange by greeting Ginny and Hermione with cordial indifference.

Harry passed Draco the book he'd brought as a gift and Draco looked at the title with shock and then the first hint of genuine amusement he'd probably ever felt in connection with Harry Potter. Contraceptive Charms for Your Pets. "Prat," he said.

"What are brothers for?" Harry smirked.

Draco snorted before he gave Ginny a quick hug. "You'll let me know if this mate of mine ever makes you unhappy, right?' he asked her. The camera flashed again and captured Draco and Ginny grinning at one another, two hooligans plotting devilry.

"I will," she said. She took Harry's hand and jerked her head toward two matching ginger heads hovering by a potted palm. "I think I see Charlie and Perce over there. I doubt they know anyone, so maybe we should go rescue them?"

"Sounds brilliant," Harry said and, with another nod at Narcissa, the pair headed off.

Draco hugged Hermione and whispered in her ear, "Don't leave me." When he released her he said, "Now that you're here you can stand here with me in and greet people." He smirked at her, his tension hidden under the expression, "The duties of a Malfoy and all."

Narcissa opened her mouth and then closed it again as a seventh year Ravenclaw arrived, a wide-eyed date half a head shorter than her following, his hands shoved in his pockets. Narcissa greeted them with her poised smile, then Draco did. When Hermione shook the boy's hand it was clammy.

"Hey, Hermione," the girl said. With a small shock, Hermione recognized her as Verity. This was the girl who'd told off the seventh year gits who'd wanted her to study Arithmancy with her and Theodore but hadn't wanted to include Draco. Hermione wondered whether the pair had overcome their aversion to Draco to lower themselves to attend the Ball. She suspected they had. It was the event of the year; to have refused to go out of a principle no one else much cared about would have made them seem even more socially out of touch than they already were.

"Verity, right?" Hermione confirmed.

The girl grinned at her. "Yep," she said. "I see you're not even married yet and they've already roped you into doing the hostess meet and greet."

"It's true," Hermione said.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Do you have any idea how many puns and plays on truth I hear?"

"Too many?" Hermione guessed.

"Don't give your kids a virtue name," was the suggestion before the girl disappeared into the party, her date in tow.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I wanted to take a quick moment to thank Shayalonnie, who alpha reads every single chapter of this and offers feedback that is pure love. Everything she writes is gold (I mean, she got me to read Jamione) and her soul is similarly wonderful._**


	136. Chapter 136 (Easter Ball: 3 of 8)

Pansy and Padma arrived at the Easter Ball together.

"I looked over your proposal," Narcissa said to Pansy after she greeted the young woman. "I think it's quite sound, and while I would be interested in setting up a meeting to talk about specific financial goals before I write the cheque, you and Miss Bulstrode have an investor."

"That's… that's great," Pansy said, thrown off her stride for once.

"I'll owl you at school to arrange a good time for the three of us to meet," Narcissa went on. "A party's not quite the right place to whip out our calendars, of course."

"I'll look for your correspondence," Pansy said. She rolled her eyes when Hermione hesitantly held out a hand and pulled the girl into a quick embrace. "Have fun," Pansy said somewhat obliquely, and then, Padma in her wake, joined Harry and Ginny by Ginny's brothers.

"I don't think we've met," Padma said, smiling at the two Weasley men.

"Really?" Ginny said. She pointed at the slimmer of the two. "This is Percy."

Percy bent down over Padma's hand and with exquisitely formal courtesy said, "Enchanted."

Ginny said, "Padma."

"What a beautiful name," Percy said. "You look familiar."

"You briefly dated one of my Housemates at school," Padma said.

"Of course," he said. "Forgive me for not remembering."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I doubt she expected you to, Perce."

His mouth tightened.

"And this is Pansy," Ginny said, gesturing toward the woman.

Percy Weasley looked at Pansy for a long moment. He might have forgotten Padma but Pansy Parkinson he clearly knew about. At last he took her hand and bowed over it as well. "You look lovely tonight," he said. "Perhaps I can beg the favor of a dance later?"

"You want to dance with the most hated pureblood girl in all of Britain?" Pansy asked. "Or did you forget that too, along with Padma's name?"

"I am quite aware of who you are," Percy said.

"I think I'll dance with her first," Charlie said. 'If you don't mind."

"And this is Charlie," Ginny said with a sigh. Charlie was bulkier than his brother and, other than their matching ginger hair, they bore little outward resemblance to one another. Percy's dress robes were pressed just so and his spectacles sat on his face as though slipping from the approved path was an unheard of vulgarity. Charlie managed, without having a single wrinkle and while wearing a wholly appropriate robe, to look as though he were in rough trousers and boots. He'd tied his hair back from his face with a silk ribbon and his mouth twitched up in a warm smile he quickly suppressed when he saw Pansy.

"If the lady would permit," he added.

Pansy shrugged. "I don't have a date so I'll dance with both of you, assuming my reputation doesn't scare you off."

"Not much scares me," Charlie said. "Certainly not some little thing in a blue dress, however much fire she might try to spit."

"It would be inappropriate to bring prejudices from the war to a party," Percy said.

"Are you _sure_ you're a Weasley?" Pansy asked Percy. "Never mind. The hair's a giveaway."

The music started and she held a hand out to the very neat man. "He did ask first," she said to Charlie who laughed and held a hand of his own out toward Padma who accepted it with delight.

"I'm glad you got them invited," Harry said to Ginny.

"Yeah," she said, watching her brothers. "Glad they've found partners. I was afraid they'd feel out of place since they don't know anyone here but, well, Percy's always been political and able to mingle and Charlie seems to have turned on the charm."

"Pity Ron wouldn't come," Harry said.

Ginny gave him a sidelong glance. "What?" he demanded when he saw her look. "He'd be fine."

"No, he wouldn't," she said.

Harry looked over at Draco and Hermione, still standing next to the formidable Malfoy matriarch. "Do you think she knows what she's getting into?" he asked.

"Narcissa or Hermione?" Ginny asked.

"Both?" Harry said. "Either?"

"I thin Hermione knows exactly what she's in for," Ginny said. "I just think she's decided the price is worth it."

"And Narcissa?"

"No idea," Ginny said with a smirk.

"She's more than the Malfoys deserve," Harry said.

Ginny shrugged. "I'm more than you deserve but I don't see you objecting."

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - happy birthday, Saphiela!


	137. Chapter 137 (Easter Ball: 4 of 8)

Theodore arrived with Susan on his arm. They both brushed ash off their clothes and Theodore muttered, "Apparation would have been tidier."

"Agreed," Susan said. She flashed him a smile. "Thanks for being my escort."

"Someone's got to keep you out of trouble," he teased. "There's two Weasleys here you haven't shagged yet and if I don't spend time with you on the dance floor I'm likely to find you behind a curtain getting lucky."

Susan hit him on the arm.

"Ouch," he said, rubbing at the spot and giving her a mock glare. "You've been spending too much time with Hermione. I'm not sure I want to live with you anymore if this is what I'm going to have to put up with."

She rolled her eyes and rested her hand on his extended arm to allow him to escort her into the ballroom. Theodore suppressed a grin when he saw that Hermione had somehow gotten pressed into receiving line duty. He wasn't sure who was less happy about that situation: Narcissa or Hermione. Both had polite smiles plastered on their faces and if neither appeared to be openly ignoring the other nor was either making any real effort to acknowledge the other woman.

"Mrs. Malfoy," Theodore said, kissing her hand. "I swear you look younger every time I see you."

"You are as much a charmer as your father," the woman said as she dimpled at him.

Theodore managed to control his response to being compared to his pater familias. "Yes," he said, "But when faced with such beauty how can I be any other way?"

Narcissa laughed and patted him on the cheek. "I remember when you fell out the library window into the shrubbery and thought you'd died," she said.

"It was, as I recall, all of a two foot drop," Theo said dryly. "I was a tad dramatic."

"And here you are, complimenting old ladies at parties," Narcissa continued. "You have grown into quite a young man, bound to make some lucky girl very happy."

Theodore exchanged a glance with Draco that Narcissa missed. Hermione, not raised to the ruthless public self-control of the pureblood Slytherins was taken by a sudden coughing fit that Narcissa ignored.

"I'm not sure we've met," Narcissa was saying to Susan as Draco handed Hermione a handkerchief and she mumbled thanks.

"Susan Bones," she said, extending her hand. "We met at Rebuilding Day."

"Oh, yes," Narcissa said. "The loss of your aunt was a great blow to Wizarding Britain. Please accept my condolences."

Susan regarded the woman in front of her for a long, slow moment. "The war was hard on everyone," she said at last. "I try to focus on moving forward."

She stepped over to Hermione and gave her a quick hug and whispered something in her ear that made Hermione, who had mostly gotten her coughing under control, start to hiccup with giggles. "Quite," Hermione gasped out.

"I like her," Narcissa was saying to Theodore. "Will we…?" She trailed off with a suggestive lilt to her voice.

"Thank you for inviting us," Theodore said. He had Susan well out of earshot before he leaned over and said, "Mrs. Malfoy thinks we'll be posting the banns any day now."

Susan clasped a hand over her mouth to hold in her own giggles. "Surely she knows," she said at last. "She's known you since you were - "

"Falling out of windows, right," Theodore said. "But what's a life of totally denying who you are and being miserable as long as you pop out the required heirs?"

Susan shook her head. "I'm going to go get some punch. Do you want anything?"

Theodore kissed her temple and said, "I think I see Blaise Zabini, of all people, over in the corner. I'm going to pop over and say hullo. Do you want me to introduce you?"

Susan shook her head. "I think I'm right off boys," she said. "I may spend the night with Padma and Luna."

"Luna?" Theodore raised an eyebrow and Susan tilted her head over toward a girl with long, dirty blonde hair and a handful of what appeared to be radishes on leather ties. "Looney?" he asked. "The Lovegood girl? I didn't know you were friends."

"You Slytherins," Susan said with fond exasperation. "You had no idea of what went on outside your own, closed circle. Go greet Blaise. I'll introduce you to Luna in a bit."

. . . . .

A/N - Trapped in car on way home. Saw my first ever high speed chase. So bored. Double chapter day because so very, very bored... Tumblr (where im also Colubrina) still the best way to ask questions or chatter!


	138. Chapter 138 (Easter Ball: 5 of 8)

Theodore didn't make it over to Blaise Zabini, and didn't need Susan to introduce him, because Luna walked up and, standing on her tip toes, put one of her charms around his neck. Theodore picked up the radish she'd gifted him and eyed it with the most serious expression he could muster. "Might I ask what it does?" he said.

"It's protection, of course," she said. "They're also good for digestion."

She dropped the rest of her charms onto a table and held out her hand. Recognizing the request, Theodore led the Ravenclaw he knew was widely regarded as daft to the dance floor. "You didn't come back this year," he observed as he settled a hand at her waist.

"It wasn't necessary," she said. She smiled up at him. "My time there was done." A tiny flicker in her eyes hinted that she wasn't quite as sanguine about Hogwarts as she pretended and Theodore tightened his grip on her waist and hand as he turned her about the floor.

"Any bad memories?" he asked. He tried to remember what he knew about this girl. She was odd, she'd fought with the Order, she'd disappeared halfway through the previous year and he didn't know what had happened. He assumed, as he considered the issue, that whatever it had been had been bad.

"I don't think I could wear enough radishes," she agreed.

He looked at her face and nodded. Whatever she'd endured had definitely been bad.

"Well, it's very nice," he said. "The charm, that is. And I'm sorry."

They danced in silence after that and, at the end of the song, she rose to her toes again and pressed her lips to his cheek. "I'm almost sorry that this isn't our turn this cycle," she said. "You seem very sweet."

He stared after her in perplexity as she drifted away, scooped up her charms, and draped one about Blaise Zabini's neck before disappearing into the growing crowd. Susan joined him, her own radish on, and said, "You look confused."

"What just happened?" Theodore asked her, his hand touching the radish the fey girl had bestowed upon him.

"They're good for digestion?" she said, the words turning up into a question.

Theodore laughed. "I guess," he said. "Let me introduce you to Blaise. At least he makes sense."

He may have made sense but the young man seemed uncomfortable and out of place. "Theodore," he said, his hand curled around a punch glass. "Good to see you."

Theodore introduced his friend to the woman at his side and he could see Blaise doing the quick calculation that the Hufflepuff was a half-blood. Before the man could say anything rude, which he almost certainly would, Theodore said, "Susan's one of my best friends this year. She's moving into the Manor once we're done with our N.E.W.T.s."

"A girl?" Blaise asked in disbelief.

"A friend," Theodore said. "Draco and Hermione are coming too."

Blaise ran his eyes over the woman in her yellow dress and her increasingly tight smile and let out a sigh. "I shouldn't have come back," he said. "I should have stayed in Italy and drunk the coffee and been - "

"Happy?" Theodore asked him.

Blaise let out a snort. "I don't expect to ever be 'happy' again," he said. "I just get by. Coffee, pretty girls, and avoiding my newest step-father."

"I'm sorry," Susan said. She eyed him and seemed to consider what to do before she asked, "Care to dance?"

Theodore tensed, waiting for Blaise to sneer that he didn't touch half-bloods or some such. It wouldn't be the first time things like that had come out of his sometime friend's mouth. Blaise liked them pretty, dumb, pureblooded and, if at all possible, already engaged to someone else. The man surprised him, however, by setting his drink on the tray of a passing caterer and saying, "Charmed."

"Susan," Theodore said, suddenly worried.

"Just to dance," she said. "Relax."

"I worry," he said.

"And I love you for it," she replied. She tugged on her radish. "However, I am protected, see?"

Blaise extended his hand. "Don't worry," he said to Theodore. "I'll treat her as if a duenna with a wand and a Muggle pistol were watching me from the edge of the dance floor."

"Well," Theodore muttered as the two walked off, "I guess I can't ask for more than that." He looked over at the punch bowl and sighed. "Wish I had a drink."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N -_** ** _Thank you, lovelies._**


	139. Chapter 139 (Easter Ball: 6 of 8)

"I feel sorry for everyone else," Draco said.

He and Hermione had been freed from receiving line duty and Narcissa had gone off to pretend to direct the catering staff but, Draco suspected, more likely to complain to his father that she'd been out-maneuvered. The good thing, of course, was that at their core they'd both be pleased by that. Annoyed, yes, but pleased.

"Why?" Hermione asked.

He smirked down at her. She'd pulled her hair into some kind of tight twist. A handful of curls had escaped and were loitering around her neck and he contemplated whether he could hide her in a back room and spend some time applying his lips to that neck.

Probably not, he decided, because of the duties of the host and all that. Still, the thought made for pleasant contemplation, and they'd be back at Hogwarts soon enough.

"Because I have the most beautiful woman in the room as my date and they all have to do without."

Hermione's eyes widened and she moved her lips into a little, pleased moue that invited his thoughts to move from her neck to her mouth and, so invited, his thoughts moseyed right along.

"Well," she said, "I have been led to understand, after multiple years of knowing you, that Malfoys always have the best of everything. The best clothes. The best brooms. The best - "

"Hermione," Draco said, pretending to be shocked. He put his hand over his heart. "Do you really think you should be praising my broom in public like this? We're at a _party_."

It took her a moment and he could see in her eyes the very second she picked up on the double entendre, as well as the following second where she contemplated hitting him in the arm. Instead she leaned over closer and said, her lips at his ear, "But is it the very best of brooms." Her hand circled his waist as she added, "I could list off in details the myriad ways this model must outshine anything else available."

Draco pulled her onto the dance floor. "I don't think you've got quite enough experience with comparison models to know that," he said. Not that he minded hearing her say it but some ruthless, internal voice told him she really didn't have enough information to claim that.

"Oh," she said, "I think once you've had the best you don't need to go around riding every discounted, bargain bin broom to know you've got the right one."

Draco moved his hand to her waist and watched her settle hers on his shoulder; she was clearly unsure of exactly how to do dancing more complicated than the stand-and-sway they'd done at their brief time at the Yule Ball. "Trust me," he whispered in her ear. "Just follow my lead and it will be fine."

It was, too. He'd not spent countless, miserable hours in mandatory dance lessons as a child to not know how to lead any woman around the floor, especially in a simple waltz. He might have had trouble getting her to follow him in something more complex, but he could make an elderly, awkward diplomat's wife with a clubfoot feel graceful on a dance floor because that was considered a required skill in a Malfoy and he'd been made to learn it. Doing the same for his beautiful, perfect fiancee was trivial.

He looked up and saw Theodore doing the same with Susan; another pureblood scion forced to learn to dance. He remembered how the pair of them had used to try to hide in the potting sheds to avoid lessons. Padma seemed to be dancing with Percy Weasley, who didn't have the same practiced grace that spoke of failing to successfully hide in the potting shed, but who wasn't embarrassing himself either. As Draco spun Hermione he wondered if Percy and Padma were discussing the best way for her to frame her applications for apprenticeships at St. Mungo's. Percy, Draco suspected, knew more about navigating the halls of government than he was given credit for and he made a note to cultivate the man. He couldn't just hide in Theodore's Manor forever and making friends with someone who hadn't hissed anti-Death Eater invective at him seemed like a reasonable choice.

He turned Hermione again and thought how pleased his parents would be to know he was slowly taking steps to be more than the boy hiding in the back of the library dusting books off and staring at the top drawer of his desk as he sat in his room at night. "Look," he said tipping his head in the direction of Pansy. "Someone took pity on the older Weasley."

Hermione looked over at the pair: a rugged man and Pansy, looking uncharacteristically fragile in her blue slip dress. "That's nice of her," she said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good morning, most lovely readers in fandom!**


	140. Chapter 140 (Easter Ball: 7 of 8)

Neville danced with Hannah with the arm around her waist pulling her a tiny bit closer than social proprieties strictly dictated was permissible. Over her shoulder he watched Theodore, who led one woman after another onto the floor. So far Neville had seen the man dance with Pansy, Padma, some little girl who must have been a friend of the Malfoys because she was much too young to be here otherwise, Susan, and Hermione. Theodore spun them all, made them laugh, even the little girl. He never lost the guarded, polite smile that had so intrigued Neville to begin with, never lost the smile Neville had finally wiped from the man's face and replaced with a look of genuine happiness.

He'd taken that as a personal victory.

He watched the way the man danced and told himself he didn't notice how good Theodore looked in his dress robes, didn't remember how good he looked without -

Neville tightened his grip on Hannah. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Just how beautiful you look," he said.

Pansy was true to her word and danced with all her friends as well as the single men who'd been invited. Theodore, Draco, Charlie Weasley, Blaise, even Percy. None of them escaped her smirk and her hand leading to them to the dance floor. After Percy Weasley demonstrated more skill than she would have expected she sent him to fetch her punch and leaned up against one of the pillars.

"You looked good on the dance floor," Charlie Weasley said.

"He's better than I would have expected," Pansy said.

Charlie smiled at her. "I think he signed up for classes once it was clear that would be a skill that would help him succeed at the Ministry An ambitious man has to be able to socialize with the elites."

Percy had returned by this point and, passing a glass to Pansy said, "There's nothing wrong with ambition." He frowned at Charlie. "I invited you to come with me."

"No need for dancing at a dragon reserve," Charlie said. "Though I appreciated the offer."

Pansy smiled at the man. Charlie lounged with a grace that was pleasantly feline but Percy seemed tense. She could see his fingers long to pluck a loose thread from her dress. "Ambition isn't anything you should be ashamed of," she agreed. Her own eyes grew bitter for a moment as she considered how her mother only wanted her to succeed in snagging a good husband, preferably Draco Malfoy. Running a business, who wanted to do that?

The Draco Malfoy in question was whispering something in Hermione's ear and Pansy felt a surge of gratitude that he'd never allow himself to be bullied by his parents into marrying anyone else. Not her, no matter how many times her mother hinted and suggested and said outright no one cared if they loved one another or not, that they were friends and that was more than enough for a lifetime, not even little Astoria, hand-picked by his mother, who was dancing with Harry Potter.

"I never cared for dancing lessons that much," Pansy said absent-mindedly as she took a sip from her punch. "Thank you for this, Percy. Would you mind holding it for a moment?"

"I'll take it," Charlie said and she passed him the glass and went out to the dance floor.

"Mind if I cut in?" she asked Astoria.

The girl gave her a grateful look. "I don't know why my mother insisted I come to this," the girl said under her breath. "I don't know anyone, no one my age is here, and I'm bored."

"There's an open floo in the back library if you want to call your friends," Pansy suggested. "Just ward the door so Draco's mum doesn't catch you."

Astoria's eyes widened and with a quick, mumbled thanks she disappeared.

"Off to tell everyone how utterly boring the Malfoy's party is," Pansy said as Harry Potter settled his hands around her. "Poor thing. My mum did that to me too."

"Why is she even here?" Harry asked her.

"Oh, didn't you know?" Pansy asked as he turned her around and a photographer snapped a picture of them. "Draco's mum thinks that girl's a perfect match for him."

Harry squinted at her. "Is that some kind of joke?"

Pansy smiled at her as sweetly as she could. "What? You don't think a war-hardened, traumatized man who probably still wakes screaming is a good match for a little girl whose sister did everything she could to shelter last year, who just ran off to gossip to her friends in an empty room? I bet she doesn't even look for how many ways she can get out of that room before she opens the floo connection."

Harry Potter regarded her. "I take it you still do?"

"Do you want to know how many ways a person could escape from this ballroom?" Pansy asked him.

"I know the answer," Harry said. She could tell by the look in his eyes he did too. They all had that look still, back behind party smiles and social masks. They probably always would. "I'm just surprised - "

"You weren't the only one who suffered, Potter."

He nodded.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, everyone, for your ongoing support!_**


	141. Chapter 141 (Easter Ball: 8 of 8)

The Ball was almost over when Harry used his wand to clink against the edge of his glass, conjuring a tinkling sound that carried though the whole room. He'd waited until Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy were both present and when he caught Hermione's eye he smirked at her. She'd stopped dancing with Draco at his call for attention and shook her head to try to stop him but Ginny and Padma, who had arranged themselves slightly behind him, just laughed at her.

"If I could get your attention, everyone," Harry began and the room settled down to listen. "I'd like to offer a couple of toasts. First to our hostess: thank you, Mrs. Malfoy, for throwing this lovely party. After years of war, I'm sure we all appreciate the chance to relax with old and new friends."

Polite applause ran through the room and Harry raised his glass toward Narcissa Malfoy. She smiled at him with apparent delight as the photographer caught the moment. She had to be thinking her Easter Ball investment was paying dividends even more handsomely than she'd anticipated.

"Next," Harry continued, "to Hermione. Hermione, you are the bravest, most loyal, and quite possibly the most insane person I've ever been honored to call a friend. If it hadn't been for you we would have lost the war because I couldn't have done it without you."

Hermione could feel her cheeks burn as the students in the room, some looking perhaps a bit shamefaced, raised their glasses in her direction. Draco tightened the grip he had on her hand and whispered, "War hero," in her ear.

"Finally," Harry said, "Draco."

The sound of the click of the camera's shutter echoed and Narcissa looked even more like the proverbial cat who'd gotten into the cream.

"We were not friends as children," Harry said, "but war breeds understanding between men. No one who didn't endure what we did will likely ever understand, but I am pleased to stand here and raise a toast to congratulate you on your engagement to Hermione."

Apparently that cream had gone off.

"I know," Harry continued, "that you will do anything for the people you love and so I know I can trust my best friend's heart in your care."

"You can," Draco said softly.

"To Hermione and Draco!"

Padma later admitted she'd planted their friends in corners of the room, and Ginny had roped her brothers into helping, and they started the cheer that ran around the room but it was picked up by everyone and the room erupted in raucous delight. Astoria looked relieved, Theo charmed, and Charlie Weasley amused. When Draco looked over at his parents he saw them exchange tight glances. He leaned down to kiss Hermione, eliciting more cheers from the crowd and surely another photograph for the paper. When Draco looked back at the doorway where his parents had stood looking over the crowd, it was empty.

Once people had gone back to dancing and gossiping around the tables of sweets, Draco herded Hermione, Ginny, and Harry and a side room, shut and warded the door. After he flung himself down into a leather chair he stretched out his legs and sighed. He took a deep breath and said, as though it pained him, "Thank you, Potter."

"You're welcome," Harry said. He flopped down into the chair next to Draco's. "You don't want to know how many bookstores I had to go into to find that."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "That wasn't what I meant," he muttered.

Harry laughed and Draco slouched lower in his seat.

"I meant what I said," Harry said at last. "You'll... Hermione needs more taking care of then she'll admit a lot of the time. You'll do a good job. You're a shite, Malfoy, but you're steady when it comes to people you care about."

Hermione, who, along with Ginny had settled on a deep first green settee, began to protest the assertion she needed looking after, but she fell silent when Draco held a hand out toward the man in the seat next to him.

"Name's Draco," he said.

Harry looked at the hand. "I understand some wizarding families are better than others," he said.

Draco shrugged. "True enough, but Hermione seems to put up with me despite mine."

Hermione blinked her eyes against the stinging tears as Harry and Draco clasped hands.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning!_**


	142. Chapter 142

"That could have been much worse," Pansy opined as they sat in the Slytherin common room. Other than Hermione, the non-Slytherin eighth years had claimed exhaustion after the Malfoy's party and disappeared off to their own beds and so Pansy, Draco, Theodore, and Hermione sat in the cool green room as seventh years emerged from their rooms to thank Draco again for what was termed the 'best party ever' though one girl added, "except for the time we all went to the lake at three in the morning and Blaise fell in and had to be rescued."

"Well," Theodore said, "Nothing's ever going to compete with that."

Pansy had her shoes off and her feet in Theodore's lap and he was pushing his thumbs into them with the absent-minded skill borne of much practice. "That was a great night," she said. "A bit of relief in the midst of a bad year."

Hermione made an inquiring sound and Draco said, "When it was bad last year we used to go down to the lake when it was dark and get thoroughly pissed. It was pretty wild."

"When you have nothing to lose," Pansy said with a shrug, then, "Yes, right there, Theo." She let out a low, satisfied sound as the man ground into her foot with more pressure.

"Why do you wear those shoes?" he demanded.

She glanced down at the high, strappy heels jumbled together on the floor with Hermione's. "Because they make my legs look great," she said. "They still hurt, though. Charms only do so much."

Hermione rested her head on Draco's shoulder and twisted her fingers through his.

"But why do I have to rub your feet?" Theodore whinged, though he didn't stop. "Where's your guy? He could have come to the party, could have come back with us, could be sitting here right now rubbing you."

"Mmm," Pansy said. "Could be sitting here right now getting grilled by you people on his intentions. No thank you." She turned to face Hermione. "Speaking of which, did Draco's mum ever acknowledge you as more than another, random guest?"

Hermione closed her eyes and didn't answer. It was Draco who said, "She didn't. Not even after Potter's announcement. She did make me dance with the fourteen-year-old, however"

"Hey," Theodore said. "I danced with her too. She seemed very sweet."

"Sure," Draco said. "Very sweet. She can be a flower girl at the wedding."

"She can be the sommelier," Pansy said with a snort. "I thought my mother was a bit mad with her obsession I learn every possible skill a good pureblood girl from 1856 could possibly need, but Madam Greengrass put her to shame. That poor kid is a walking anachronism. I found her talking to the caterers about the best way to source game birds."

"Merlin," Draco said. "What a rotten thing to do to a kid. Do you think she's ever allowed to play?"

"Daphne wasn't," Pansy said. "So, no, probably not."

"That's awful," Hermione said. "Is that normal?"

"Define 'normal'," Draco muttered.

"Pretty much," Pansy said. "Welcome to the wonderful world of growing up as a pureblood."

"Life as a Muggle-born seems better and better," Hermione said. "Though I have to confess my complete lack of knowledge of wine."

"Well," Draco said, "that's it. You're done."

"I can't sing in Italian either," Hermione added.

Pansy let out a snigger and then glared at Theodore who had made the mistake of stopping rubbing her feet to enjoy the way Hermione was teasing Draco. It had, after all, been a long night of Narcissa Malfoy and that Hermione could laugh about it seemed a bit of an Easter miracle.

"Well," Pansy said as she stood up, "I'm going to bed. Be sure to use silencing charms, you crazy kids."

"Those I know," Hermione said. "Italian: no. Spells: yes."

"Thank Merlin," Theodore muttered. "Do you think you could put one around Clem and her all little ones? It's a fucking cacophony of Pygmy Puffs in there."

"Why don't you do it?" Hermione asked.

"And lose the opportunity to complain?" Theodore asked as he reached down and picked up Pansy's shoes. "It's like you don't even know me." He handed the shoes up to Pansy. "I think I'll stay out here in the common room for an hour or so, look at the fish." He glanced at Draco. "If you get my meaning."

Hermione turned a dull red but Draco's lips turned up in a sly grin. "The fish are nice," he said.

"Very nice," Theodore agreed.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you for all your wonderful reviews. I know I don't reply to them individually any more but I love love love getting them. You are the engine that drives this story._**


	143. Chapter 143

"Okay," Draco said as he handed one of the miniature Pygmy Puffs to Trista. "Now, you have to make sure he - "

"Or she," Pansy said from the corner, eliciting a giggle from the little girls and an exasperated look from Draco.

"Or _she_ ," he said, "has a clean cage and water and you have to feed him - "

"Her"

" - every day. You can order Pygmy Puff food from Weasley Wizard's Wheezes or you can just use table scraps." He glanced over at Pansy, waiting for her to have an opinion about which type of food was better but she just flipped a page of her Muggle science book and didn't offer any commentary.

"Clem likes a soft bed but Salvador - Ginny Weasely's puff - "

"And their father."

" _Salvador_ ," Draco continued, "Chewed his to bits and seems to prefer a pile of parchment so you'll have to experiment with the bed."

Trista looked down at the very small ball of pink fluff in her cupped hands and made a delighted, soft squeal. The puff chirped back and then burrowed into her skin, turned around, and fell asleep. "She's so cuuuuuuuuuute," Trista said.

"How do you know it's a she?" one of the other girls asked.

"I don't," Trista said. "I mean, how can you tell?"

"How indeed?"

Draco glared at Pansy. "No one asked for your input, you know," he said.

"One of the great things about being me," Pansy said, "is that I don't care and offer it anyway." She flipped another page in her book. "My advice is to keep them separated unless you want to play pass along the Puff too."

Draco nearly growled but managed to control himself and lifted up another tiny Puff and handed it to Sari. "Your sure your parents will be okay with this?" he asked her but the girl was already cooing at her new pet, who chirped back in delight, and didn't respond.

"Don't worry," Theodore said. He'd come out of the their blessedly silent room and was leaning against the wall as he watched Draco pass out the babies. "He'll take them back if your parents object." Draco gave Theodore a grouchy look and the man spread his hands in a gesture of false innocence. "Imagine how much your mother would enjoy a pet of her own. Now that you're out of the house and planning to live with me she'll need something to shower with love."

"I'm keeping one for Astoria," Draco said. "She told me that would be great in the same floo conversation where she told me hell would freeze before she married me and she just wanted me to know that in case I'd gotten my hopes up." He handed another Puff out to a waiting Slytherin girl who rubbed her cheek against the soft fluff with delight.

Theodore laughed. "That was considerate of her."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I wish my mum would just let it go. She managed to write me a note about how lovely it was to see me and all my friends at the ball and never once mention Hermione."

Pansy set her book down and sighed. "Fine," she said. "I'll do it."

"Do what?" Draco asked her, obviously confused as he passed out another Puff to a waiting girl.

"I'll just marry you. Obviously you haven't the stones to go against your mum and tell her what a fool she's being, and since - "

"I am not marrying you," Draco said. He held both hands out in front of him as though he could ward off the horror of that idea with a gesture alone. "Never. Never. Never. Don't even joke."

Pansy eyed him for a long moment. "You plan to tell your mum she needs to get over it?" Draco mumbled something and she said, "Look, loser, no one expects you to live in the Manor. Hermione had to bloody well dose herself with Draught of Peace just to step foot in the place for your mum's little party so that would be a bad idea - "

"She did?" Theodore stared at Pansy.

"Odd how being tortured in the place made her tense," Pansy said. "My _point_ is that you're going to have to force the issue with your parents."

"How do you plan to handle it with _your_ unsuitable beau?" Draco asked her.

Pansy snorted. "We'll announce our engagement approximately point five seconds before fleeing for his place, far out of reach of either of our mothers, stopping to do a little matrimonial paperwork at the Ministry on the way." She looked at Draco. "Not quite an option for you what with you liking your parents, despite themselves."

Draco handed over the last Puff of the day to a girl who was listening to the 'adult' conversation with wide eyes. "I'd hoped they'd be more - "

"They aren't," Pansy said. "Your mum made it through an entire party without acknowledging there was a ring on Hermione's finger even after Potter's toast and your stunt with the receiving line. You're going to have to talk to them."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, you lovely people! I know that round numbers are silly but still._**

 ** _I am really probably going to continue this (in the same fic) into a part 2 that starts up again the following September. It's the "Hogwarts: Like sand through the hourglass, these are the Day of Our Lives" fic. But if you're exhausted there will be a logical end at the end of part 1 and you could stop there and not feel you'd been left hanging._**


	144. Chapter 144

"I want a drink."

The words made Draco turn and look at Theodore. His roommate sat on his bed, books out in front of him. He'd been highlighting things with a spelled quill in his Arithmancy text and neither had talked for over an hour as they slogged through the seemingly never-ending homework. Sometimes Draco almost missed being in so much terror for his life that he didn't care about essays.

Essays were no fun at all.

"You want a what?" Draco asked, pretending he hadn't quite heard.

"A drink," Theodore said. "Actually, I want a lot of drinks. I want to drink until I don't feel anything."

"What happened?" Draco asked. "Is it Neville and Hannah? Because I can make sure they - "

"Got an owl," Theodore said, stopping the flow of Draco's predictable offers to ruin anyone who bothered his handful of friends.

"From who?" Draco asked.

"My dad," Theodore said.

Draco closed his eyes for a moment. "How bad is it?" he asked.

When he opened them again Theodore was watching him. "How do you do it?" he asked. "How do you go back home and talk to your parents when they supported that monster? How do you not just burn in rage when your father asks you to pass the marmalade or your mother fusses at you?"

Draco's eyes flicked, against his will, to the top drawer of his desk. He hadn't pulled the knife out since the winter holiday break when his mother had chattered on about Astoria Greengrass and Pansy wouldn't do - oh, no, not with that horror that was her mother - but little Astoria was a delight and they could have a long engagement and get to know one another. He'd walked away from that dinner with a smile on his face and had the knife he kept at home pressed into his skin before he'd had time to think.

"Of course," Theo said.

"What did he want?" Draco asked.

"For me to visit," Theo said. "He wants to see me." His voice broke on the last word. "Draco, what do I do?"

"Do you want to go?" Draco asked.

"No," Theodore said. "I want him to be at home, I want him to have not done this. I want him to have never picked up a fucking mask and decided… whatever it was he decided."

Draco looked at his friend. Theodore's face was contorted as if he were trying to keep from breaking, from screaming, from crying.

"What do I do?" he asked again in a whisper. "If I go, does that mean I think what he did was okay? If I don't go…how can I not go? How can I go? Draco, he might have been the one to kill Susan's family. And if it wasn't him, it wasn't because he wouldn't have."

"I know," Draco said, the words wrenched from him. How were they supposed to live with the knowledge their parents had killed and tortured? They'd gone after people for reasons that seemed so trivial now. They'd gone after their friends. At least when the Order people faced the deaths they'd caused they could tell themselves it had been to protect people.

"Sometimes I feel like I can't live with it," Theodore said, echoing his thoughts. "I'll never get the things I want, never have a father I can be…" He let out a huge exhale. "Susan can say, 'This was my family. I'm proud of them' and Neville can say, 'My parents lost everything fighting' and even you can say, 'In the end, my mother lied and saved people.' I have, 'My father did nothing good.' I have 'At least some people will judge me on my own merit.'" He looked at Draco and now tears were running down his face. "Our whole lives we were told our families, our history, our heritage mattered. Being a pureblood meant something. How do I exist when everything I've been told to value is a lie? Worse than a lie?"

"I don't know," Draco said. "I don't know, Theodore."

"I have to go, don't I?" Theodore said.

"Do you still love him?" Draco asked.

Theodore wiped at his face with quick, angry motions but nodded at the same time.

"Do you want me to go with you?"

Theodore nodded again.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Much love to you all._**


	145. Chapter 145

Draco had almost passed Andy in the corridor before the black eye registered. He grabbed the boy's arm and Andy gave Draco an almost sheepish look as the older boy examined his face.

"Who do I go after?" Draco demanded. "Who in the bloody hell hit you?"

Ginny snorted but before she could say anything Andy offered up a name. Draco nodded. He knew the name, if not the face of the person it belonged to. He'd started keeping a list, one hermione didn't know about, of all the people who hissed names at her. People could abuse him, he didn't care about that, but he was slowly amassing a collection of people who would have a very hard time in the professional world after Hogwarts. Certainly none of them would get a government job. The top dogs at the Ministry may have changed, but the faceless bureaucrats who made up the bulk of most departments had been in the Malfoy's pockets for generations and the war hadn't changed that. Ministry pay was low and it was a rare soul who turned down a little extra. Outside the Ministry, few businesses of any size didn't have a history of involvement with the Malfoys.

"People may hate us," Lucius had told him once, "but they find their abstract scruples disappear when they want an investor."

The boy who'd hit Andy was already on the list of people whose post-Hogwarts lives were likely to be one perplexing disappointment after another. Thirteen-year-old Draco had gloated when he taunted schoolyard rivals. Eighteen-year-old Draco planned to destroy anyone who bothered his wife - or his friends - in such a way that it could never be traced to him. He'd learned discretion and learned it the hard way.

"I wouldn't worry about Andy," Ginny said. "He gave much better than he got."

Draco let go of the boy and narrowed his eyes. "Explain," he demanded.

Andy smirked and looked smug. "I just didn't like something he said."

Draco looked at Ginny, who looked awfully pleased for a woman regarding a twelve-year-old boy with a purple and black shadow on one eye. She schooled her expression to one of innocence and said, "I believe one of my less intelligent Housemates made a comment about how Death Eaters such as your august self shouldn't have been allowed back."

Draco looked at Andy. "And then he hit YOU," he asked confused. His casual preference for the boy was hardly a secret given he'd bought Andy an expensive broom and could periodically be found coaching the boy into more and more aggressive Quidditch plays but he hasn't expected that to translate into Gryffindors taking their simple minded hatred of him out on a child.

"Not exactly," Ginny said, following his thoughts. "It's a bit more that our sweet little Andrew pummeled him."

"He's a fifth year," Draco said slowly. A fifth year who Draco planned to underline in his list and maybe add even a little star next to his name. A fifth year who'd managed to both insult Hermione and punch Andy and one on whom Draco planned to focus extra attention.

"Pummeled him," Ginny said again. "Kid managed to land one wild swing by accident before he gave up."

"You aren't going to get in trouble?" Draco asked Andy.

Ginny shook her head, "Kid went to Pomfrey and you know how she never asks questions."

Draco and Ginny exchanged a look. They both knew all to well how Madam Pomfrey looked the other way for everything. She just patched students up and sent them back to classes and abusive teachers and Dark Lords without so much as sounding a single note of concern. "I guess that finally works in our favor," Draco muttered. Ginny nodded.

"Try not to get into fisticuffs with kids three years older than you," Draco said with a sigh as he looked at Andrew. "Next time you might come up against someone who isn't a total idiot. And I'm capable of looking after me and mine without your help."

Ginny raised her brows and coughed.

"However," Draco said, "Thank you."

"I'll hit anyone who goes after you or Hermione," Andy said.

"No more hitting people to defend me," Draco said. At Andy's thrust out jaw he added, "I mean it, Andy, no more."

"Hermione?" Andy asked.

"I won't tell you not to do that," Draco said and Andy looked pleased.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - This one is a direct response to a reviewer suggestion!_**


	146. Chapter 146

Theodore looked up from the dinner table. Susan hadn't sat with the eighth years for dinner that night and he searched the Dining Hall to find her, worried. It was only when Pansy tilted her head with a sharp gesture toward the Hufflepuff table, however, that Theodore finally spotted her, more than half hidden next to a tall boy with broad shoulders and poor posture.

A boy who had his hands out of sight.

"Excuse me," Theodore said to the rest of their friends as he tossed his napkin down beside his plate and made his way across the room. He went around the Hufflepuff table so he could slide in next to Susan, wedging himself between her and her erstwhile suitor, knocking the boy's hand off her lower back as he did so. "Hi Sue," he said.

"What the hell?" the boy muttered. "I thought you didn't like girls."

Theodore ignored him. "We were going to help Padma drill some of her endless Healer track learning after dinner," Theodore said. He shuddered as dramatically as he could. "Don't tell me you forgot; I don't think I could forgive you if you made me do flashcards of the various ailments of the intestinal system without you." He twisted so he could look at the glowering boy. "You would not believe the variety of intestinal parasites there are, or what an upset in intestinal heath can do to a person." Theodore smiled at Susan. "Did you know there are actually curses to give people hook worms? Fairly simply ones too, and wholly legal because they have some kind of treatment efficacy for people with some horrible illness or other." He turned back to the boy. "The cure seems like it might be worse than the disease. Here, have some worms. V _astabitur vermibus."_

The boy cringed away from him and Theodore hid his smile.

"So, you still in?" he asked Susan.

She frowned at him. "I don't remember a study session being set up for tonight, Theodore."

"She has plans," the probable object of her plans said.

Theodore shrugged. "So did I, but who can turn down hook worms?"

Susan narrowed her eyes at Theodore. "I don't need a keeper," she said.

"Keeper?" he asked in mock innocence. "I'm just reminding you about the intestinal thing. Hook worms. Pin worms. The benefits of fermentation on overall gut health." He sighed. "I miss fermentation."

"Then eat pickles," Susan suggested in a tight voice.

Theodore shrugged. "Maybe I'll do that," he said. "If I squint hard enough, maybe they'll look like happiness." He stood up. "You know where to find me," he said. "You know the password It'll be me, a poffle of puffs, and too much information about your digestive system." He pointed at some mushy vegetables on the boy's plate before leaving. "Speaking of digestion, don't eat that. Trust me."

When he returned to the Slytherin table, Pansy said, "She's not coming?"

"You want me to make a bad pun," Theodore asked before he rubbed his face and sagged. "No, she's not. She has, as the gentleman sitting next to her informed me, plans."

Draco looked over at Susan, who had her head tipped toward the boy in question. When she glanced up at the Slytherin table he could feel his stomach clench. He knew the dead look in her eyes, could recognize it even from across the room. "Theodore," he said, his voice almost ragged.

"I know," Theodore said, "but what am I supposed to do? Physically drag her away from the guy?"

"That seems like an option, yes," Draco muttered but his spine sagged to match Theodore's because he knew it wasn't. He watched her as she tossed her hair and took the boys hand. They left the Dining Hall and she was out the door before he realized he'd begun rubbing at his Mark and the scars across it unconsciously. Hermione placed her hand over his and squeezed and he laced his fingers through hers. "When does it get easier?" he asked in a low voice.

"It has," Hermione said in a low tone. She rested her head on his shoulder and he could feel the warmth of her pressed up against his side. "It's better than it was. Six months from now it'll be better still. But I don't think it will ever be gone. Not really. We'll just get better and better at living with it."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! It's the weekend here. Life goals: post office and gingerbread cookies and Star Wars._**


	147. Chapter 147

Susan knocked on the door sometime after midnight. When she stepped into Draco and Theodore's room she stopped and bit the edge of her lip. "I shouldn't have come," she said, sounding apologetic and unsure. "It's late." She took a step back toward the exit before Theodore grabbed her hand and held onto it.

"I told you anytime," he said. He'd expected her earlier and had sat up, book in hand, waiting for her arrival.

Clem made annoyed chirp at being disturbed and resettled herself around the last member of her brood.

"Don't listen to her," Theodore said. "Stupid puff."

"I'm the stupid puff," Susan said.

He shook his head, however, and pulled her over to sit on his bed. "Want to talk about it?" he asked. She pushed off her shoes and sank into the mattress and let out a sad sigh instead of talking. Draco rolled over and opened an eye, recognized Susan and, with sleepy indifference, turned back over and pulled his blankets more firmly around his head. His hair stuck out in every direction and he had a crease under one eye from his pillow. Susan eyed him. "You'd think he'd be cuter in his sleep," she said. Theodore choked back a laugh as she settled herself against his headboard. Her mild amusement at the appearance of the oh-so-vain Draco faded away until she seemed to wilt. "I hate myself," she said at last.

Theodore took her hand and laced his fingers through hers and considered her chewed nails for a moment. "I know the feeling," he said at last, "but you haven't done anything to be hate worthy. You're a hero, you fought on the right side, you're brave and kind and - "

"And a whore," she said, and began to cry.

"You've started taking payment?" Theodore asked. Susan blinked a few times and goggled at him. He leaned his head back and said, "This changes everything, Sue. We need to set you up with a business vault at Gringotts, get you some insurance." He squeezed her hand. "Have you considered offering different levels of service at different price points? Maybe an instructional plan for some of these louts?"

She began to giggle at that.

"I mean it," he said, keeping his voice wholly serious. "If you've moved from a hobbyist to a professional, we need to analyze your strengths and figure out the best way to capitalize - if you'll forgive the economics pun - on them. Business investment is something Notts do, you know. Maybe - "

"I just feel dirty," she said, interrupting him. "Used up. Like an old handkerchief or something."

Theodore leaned his head against hers. "You aren't," he said. The words were simple and hung in the air and when she didn't respond he said them again. "You aren't. As long as you're enjoying yourself and aren't hurting anyone, keep having fun. It's your body. You - Susan - cannot be 'used up'. You aren't a stick of gum to be chewed once and then thrown away." He took a deep breath. "And if you aren't having fun - "

"No one's ever going to want me," she interrupted him again. "No one worth having."

"Because you've had so many partners?" Theo asked. When she nodded, he scoffed. "No one worth having will care." She began to shake her head and he sat up all the way and turned so he could put his hands on each side of her face, hold her still, and make her look at him. "Anyone worth having will not give a flying fuck how many men you've been with because they'll see that you're beautiful and kind and forgiving and because this thing that makes you feel like crap will matter exactly not at all to him Not in any way that makes him think you're less. It's your body. Your life."

"You know what wizards are like," she countered. "Anyone who… no one will want the whore of Hogwarts. Not for anything real. And it's not like everyone doesn't know."

Theodore kept his eyes on hers. "Draco's mother thinks you'll marry me, and, not to brag, but I'm a bit of a catch. Rich, pureblooded, blah blah blah. If she thinks Susan Bones, war heroine, is good enough for the likes of me, well… you aren't _tainted_ , Susan. You aren't… you're you and anyone who doesn't appreciate you can answer to me." He trailed off,unsure what to say and gave her a sad excuse for a teasing grin. "I'm sure any number of equally eligible bachelors will find you a delight."

"Maybe," Susan said, removing his hands from her cheeks and settling back down against the headboard. Theo slid so he was lying down again, his face pressed into his pillow at her hip.

"I'll bet you I'll be single long after you've settled down and are raising far too many babies." He sighed. "Sue, there's no one for me. No one."

She looked down at him and then scooted so she was snuggled against him. He wrapped an arm around her and she said, a smirk in her voice, "There were at least two gay men besides you at the Malfoy ball. Probably more because I didn't dance with everyone. Stop wallowing in the idea you're the only gay wizard in all of Britain."

"I think I would have noticed," Theo objected.

Susan smiled in the darkness. "You have your head up your arse because of Neville," she said. "Right now you wouldn't notice unless a man walked up to you and said, 'You're hot, let's go shag.'"

"Two?" Theodore asked.

"At least," she said.

"Who?" he demanded, but despite his badgering her she refused to tell him, insisting if he was too dense to figure out a man was eyeing him, he probably wasn't ready to move on from Neville. Theodore teased and cajoled but, for all his insistence she was a cruel, cruel woman and he took back everything he'd ever said about her being kind, he was more relieved she was relaxing against him than anything else. And, to be honest, she was probably right. He still thought about Neville far more than anyone ready to try again would. He thought about Neville's smile and Neville's laugh and Neville's legs. This night, though, with Susan pressed against him in her bed, still in her clothes, he began picturing everyone who had been at the Malfoy's Ball and trying to figure out who she meant. He fell asleep thinking it would be just his luck that it would turn out to be one of the Ravenclaw prats who had refused to study with the Death Eaters.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning!_**


	148. Chapter 148

"Tomorrow," Ginny said to Hermione as they passed in the corridor.

Hermione nodded. "We'll be there," she said.

And they were.

The next day, as seventh and eighth year Defense Against the Dark Arts students began to slide into their seats, a row of additional students were already in place at the back of the room. When Professor Weasley arrived her eyes flickered at the sight of Hermione, Draco, Theodore and the rest of the seventh year Slytherin students who had abandoned her class to do Independent Study with Hermione. She didn't acknowledge their presence, however, and instead she just began the class.

"The Patronus Charm," she said, "is very difficult magic. It is _not_ required for your N.E.W.T. and, indeed, many adult wizards are unable to produce one at all or, if they can, they cannot make a fully corporeal patronus."

One student stuck her hand in the air and, with a nervous glance back at the students arranged against the back wall, legs stuck out and lolling like satisfied predators in their seats, she asked, "Is it true that Death Eaters couldn't make one?"

Molly Weasley smiled at the girl. "Yes," she said. "That is correct. Dark wizards who try to cast a Patronus will be devoured by maggots that emerge from the end of their wand."

Another girl waved her hand in the air and when Molly Weasley called on her asked, "So, we have to think of our happiest memory?"

Professor Weasley confirmed that students needed to hold their happiest memory in their mind as they cast the charm and then asked if anyone was interested in trying it, cautioning them yet again that this was very advanced work and even being able to create an intangible silver light was proof of superior magic ability; she didn't want any of them to feel that they had failed if they were unable to do one.

Several students came, one at a time, to the front of the room and worked on the charm. One managed, to a round of enthusiastic applause, to manage a wisp of silver. After a bit Hermione rose from her seat, stalked to the front of the classroom, and, with a falsely sweet smile at Professor Weasley and a suggestion that she could, perhaps, try it, called forth her otter.

The little creature looked around the room and seemed pleased at the gasps that greeted it. One boy reached out a hand as if he could touch it and the otter sprang away and began doing somersaults on Professor Weasley's desk.

"Yes," Molly Weasley said. "You were taught by Harry, weren't you, dear?"

"I was," Hermione acknowledged.

Theodore loped to the front of the room. "I think I'd like to try it," he said with a cordial look at the professor. "If you don't mind."

"It's a very difficult charm," the woman said again. "Don't set yourself up for disappointment, Mr. Nott. Given your family - "

But Theodore's rabbit patronus had sprung from his wand and stood, twitching its nose, and Professor Weasley shut her mouth with a snap.

"I thought Death Eaters couldn't make one," someone from the class said

Theodore smirked.

"Well," Professor Weasley said, "it's really dependent on being able to produce a happy memory. One has to be pure of heart."

"Pure of heart," Theodore said in evident delight. "That's me."

"Nonsense," Hermione said.

Theodore put a hand over that heart. "I'm wounded, Hermione," he said.

"I wasn't talking about you," she said, her voice laced with amusement everyone in the room could feel. "I was talking about the common misperception one has to be 'pure of heart' to conjure a patronus."

"And what evidence do you have to refute this," Molly Weasley asked. "I'm sure you don't mean to impugn your friend." She looked smug as she said this, as though she had boxed Hermione into a corner. "And, besides, _he_ wasn't ever a Death Eater."

"No," Hermione said, "He wasn't. And Theodore's heart is one of the most generous I've found. But I was talking about Umbridge."

Molly Weasley narrowed her eyes. "Dolores Umbridge wasn't a Death Eater," she said.

"Nor was she pure of heart," Hermione said. "Unless you mean something quite different by that than what is generally assumed, and she had no trouble making a patronus."

Draco pulled his wand and conjured his own otter. It took a few moments for the class to realize what he'd done.

"You can do two, Miss Granger?" Professor Weasley asked as she eyed the second otter gamboling toward her. "Very impressive."

"I cannot," Hermione said. She dimpled and looked back at Draco and the tiny bit of understanding that flashed between them widened the eyes of everyone who saw it and drew sighs from more than one female student. "That's Draco's."

"Don't be absurd," Professor Weasley said. She sounded stiff and angry. "You two have concocted some kind of prank to try to prove he can make one when we all know he was a Death Eater and thus cannot." She patted Hermione on the hand with utter condescension. "It would have been more convincing if you'd come up with a different shape, dear."

Draco stood up and began making his way to the front of the room. He rolled up his sleeves as he walked, baring the Mark in public for the first time since school had begun. "I can do it again," he offered.

Hermione ostentatiously set her own wand on the professor's desk, murmuring that she wanted to make sure it was clear she wasn't cheating. Molly Weasley crossed her arms and scowled as Draco waved his wand in a tight circle and almost whispered the words. _Expecto Patronum._

The otter danced out of his wand and scampered about, delighted with life, with the desks, with one girl's shoes.

"Why are they the same?" one girl asked, her words loud in the room otherwise filled with shocked silence.

Draco turned to Professor Weasley and said, eyebrows cocked up in an arrogant smirk, "Guess your research wasn't quite thorough enough. Professor."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morrow to the nicest readers and reviewers in fandom!_**


	149. Chapter 149

"They were the same."

Andy made a face. He'd been trying to work on his essay for an hour and all he'd done was master an editing charm Hermione had shown him. He'd crossed out and magicked away more false starts than ever before and he hated this essay and he hated school and he couldn't wait for it to be summer even if that meant being home with just his Muggle dad and no magic and no flying.

No flying would be hard.

But right now he'd trade it for having a holiday from all these essays.

"The same!"

The querulous voice repeated itself and Andy was about to turn around and tell the person to shut up when he realized it was Professor Weasley. He dropped a quill and, as he bent down to get it, peeked over at the woman. She had her arms crossed and was talking to the librarian and, wonder of wonders, Madam Pince wasn't telling her to hush.

Madam Irma Pince scared Andy. She had a hooked nose and was mean and unhelpful and he'd seen her hit students with a feather duster before. He already knew that the only way to find lost books was to ask Draco or Hermione. They both knew the library as well as mean old Pince did.

"What do you mean, 'the same'?" Madam Pince was asking now.

"They have the same patronus," Professor Weasley said. Andy shifted so he could watch the pair out of the corner of his eye as he eavesdropped. "I did the class on the Patronus charm today - didn't expect any students to master it of course - and he up and produced one that was the same as hers."

"Who?" Madam Pince asked.

"Hermione Granger and that Malfoy boy." Professor Weasley sank onto the edge of Pince's desk and began rubbing the bridge of her nose. "How is that even possible? She and Ron were so perfect together. I knew she had a crush on him when they were just children and at first I thought, Muggle-born, dear Merlin, she'll just incite Arthur's tiresome hobby even more, but she didn't even encourage him and was such a sweet girl, and Ron just adored her. He asked her to marry him, did you know that? And then she just… for a _Death Eater_. It's like a slap in the face, an absolute slap in the face. I took that girl in, opened my home to her. I knit her jumpers, Irma. _Jumpers_."

Andy could feel his anger rising. Who cared about Professor Weasley's stupid jumpers? He'd seen her wear them to class and they were horrid, all lumpy and frumpy and dumpy. Did she think Hermione owed her awful son - not that Andy had ever met her son but he was going to just decide the prat was awful even if he was a war hero - her life because of _jumpers_?

"How can they be the same?" Irma Pince said. "That doesn't happen. Are you sure it wasn't a trick?"

"I watched him do it," Molly Weasley said. "And it can happen. I've seen it once before." Andy could hear her voice catch a little. "Remus and Tonks. Her patronus changed to match his."

"May they rest in peace," Irma Pince murmured so softly Andy could barely hear her. "So many losses."

He saw Molly Weasley rest her hand on Irma Pince's and the two women shared an indecipherable look of grief beyond bearing. After a moment Molly said, her voice level with the careful mastery of a woman with iron self-control, "It was how I knew they were in love. How I knew it wasn't some silly crush on Tonk's part, how I knew they belonged together."

Irma Pince nodded. "The patronus," she said, her voice far more ragged than Molly Weasley's. "Always."

"Oh, Irma," Molly Weasley said. "What if I've made a terrible mistake? I've been horrible to that girl, I've blamed her…blamed that boy. What if… but he was against all of us. I know he was a boy but so was Fred. He could have changed sides." She shared another look with Irma. "Other people did."

"I think he's a good boy," Irma Pince said softly and Andy held himself as still as he could to hear. "I think he was a lost soul and he found a lifeline in that girl. Don't blame her too much, Molly. No one chooses who to love."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hi :)_**


	150. Chapter 150

Draco folded up the letter and turned the paper over to address it.

"Writing your mum?" Theo asked from his bed, not looking up.

Draco sighed. He still hadn't confronted his parents about their appalling refusal to acknowledge his engagement. It didn't really matter, not in any material way. He knew perfectly well they'd never disown him and, even if they did, so many vaults were already in his name neither he nor Hermione would ever need to work a day in their lives. Yet, it mattered. Of course it mattered. He loved them, he loved her, and their refusal to accept her was like a sore that wouldn't heal, one he'd just been ignoring as if that would make it go away. Worse, he knew it hurt Hermione, though she'd never said anything. Her own parents were obliviated and as good as gone forever, her near-adoptive wizarding mother, Molly Weasley, had rejected her, and now his own parents refused to admit she wasn't just an embarrassing crush that would fade after he left school. Even the society pages gushing over the Malfoy's Easter Ball, complete with photographs and quotes from Harry Potter and the public announcement of his engagement as "the most romantic wartime romance story" hadn't garnered a response.

Draco had, however, cut out some clippings of Potter and sent them to the man with a note reading, "Can't even go to a party without making the news." Potter had sent back a photo of himself making a rude gesture.

"No," Draco said. "I'm not writing my mum."

"Who then?" Theo still wasn't paying much attention.

"Percy Weasley."

"Really?" Theo did look up at that. "Why?"

Draco shrugged as he finished addressing the envelope. He'd decided to send it to the man at work rather than at home. He wasn't sure if Percy still lived at the Burrow with the rest of his wretched family and, if he did, getting a note from Draco Malfoy might not be the easiest thing ever.

"He works at the Ministry and seemed rational both times I met him," he said. "I thought I should start building my own network."

"Slip another Malfoy tendril into the bowels of power," Theo said. "Our little Drakey, all grown up."

Draco glared at him. "Call me Drakey again and lose an eye," he muttered.

"You liked it when Pansy did it," Theo said with a smirk.

"When I was, what, twelve? Thirteen?" Draco said. "You want me to haul out all your bad judgements from those years? I have two words for you. Zacharias. Smith."

Theo groaned. "Fine," he said. "You don't bring up my horrible ideas and I won't bring up yours." He leaned back against his headboard and eyed his friend. "Do you really think one of the Weasleys will be all that open to your overtures? Ginny, sure, but her mother's still a closed minded harpy and you can't tell me that prat in our year in going to welcome you with open arms. Not ever."

"Maybe?" Draco asked. "Percy danced with Pansy at the party and she said he seemed pleasant enough."

"Merlin, that's practically gushing from her," Theo said.

"Will you mind?" Draco asked. "I mean, if I have people over to your house next year. You know the kind of little soirees I mean."

"Who are you cultivating besides Weasley?" Theo asked.

"Not sure yet," Draco admitted. "But. between the 'oh, he can't be a Death Eater' patronus incident and the Easter Ball, some people here at Hogwarts are warming up, and, well, Andy may be young but no one said networks had to be all people within a year or two of your age. Long game and all."

Theo shrugged. "Have over whoever you like. It's your house too, mate. Your flocks of ducklings, Potter, even Percy Weasley."

"Zacharias Smith?" Draco asked.

Theo made a disgusted face. "Whatever happened to him?"

Draco smiled. "I think he managed to antagonize everyone on every side and is currently friendless, brainless, and unemployed in Greenland."

"He shoved first years out of his way when he fled the battle," Theo said. "What a dick. His father was a dick. He was a dick. Dick, dick, dick."

"You would know," Draco said airily.

"A small dick, too," Theo added.

At that both young men sniggered and Draco stood up to take his note up to the owlry. "Made a date to visit your own father?" he asked from the doorway.

Theo shook his head. "Written your mum?"

Draco shook his.

. . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Princess Bride references for everyone! Also dick jokes._**


	151. Chapter 151 (A Meeting with McGonagall)

Hermione sat in Headmistress McGonagall's office, her fingers clutched together rather nervously. She wondered if one ever got over one's nerves at being called in to see the Head. She knew she hadn't done anything wrong and yet she still felt her heart pounding just a little and her mouth felt dry.

"You've had an excellent year," Minerva McGonagall said. She'd had her head down and was reading was seemed to be Hermione's file. If anything, that made Hermione more nervous. "As usual, superb marks in all your subjects and your professors have nothing but praise for your hard work and dedication."

Hermione swallowed. The sound seemed very loud in her ears. "I'm glad they think well of me," she got out.

"I heard about your little stunt in Defense Against the Dark Arts," McGonagall went on. "Quite a display that was. How long had you been working on that?"

"Since the fall," Hermione admitted.

"I see you mentioned Dolores Umbridge in your essay on the Patronus charm." Hermione gulped. She'd turned that essay in to Molly Weasley, despite having not gone to the woman's class in months. McGonagall picked a sheet of parchment up and skimmed it. Hermione saw, with trepidation, it was her essay. "Horrid woman," McGonagall said. "I think I even preferred Alecto, despite her unfortunate psychosis."

Hermione began to feel very confused about this meeting.

"Getting both young Mr. Malfoy and young Mr. Nott to produce a corporeal patronus is quite an accomplishment for a teacher, especially an inexperienced one such as yourself. How did you go about it?"

"It… it just came naturally to Draco," Hermione said. "Theo… he worked really hard. I don't think it had anything to do with me."

McGonagall smiled as she picked up another sheet of parchment and looked it over. "I think we will have to agree to disagree about that, my dear. I think it had quite a bit to do with you." She used one hand to slide Hermione's patronus essay across the desk to her. "I'd like to see you revise this, please, and have it on my desk by next week. I've made some notes on things I'd like you to research and expand upon."

Hermione blinked a few times and then snatched the paper back up. Next to the expected check mark Molly Weasley had left was almost a whole other essay, written in a neat hand in red ink. Minerval McGongall had commented on almost everything she'd written. The woman had cited several texts she thought Hermione should look at and demanded she expand on her personal knowledge of the subject. _You need to have more faith in your own expertise_ , she'd written. _While it's good to demonstrate a mastery of the theoretical underpinnings of the matter at hand, if you don't bring your own research in you are merely rehashing other people's work._

Hermione looked up at the Headmistress. "I don't understand," she said.

"Well," Minerva McGonagall said, peering at her over her spectacles, "You're a very bright girl but that needs a little clean up and expansion before you submit it for publication."

"Publication?" Hermione squeaked.

"Of course," McGonagall looked back down at the sheet she was still reviewing. "Now, on to why I asked you to meet with me today."

Hermione's confusion increased.

"What are your plans for next year?" McGonagall asked her.

"I, uh, nothing really," Hermione said. "Draco and I are moving in with Theodore. So is Susan. We'll just… be, I guess."

Minerva McGonagall made an mmm-ing noise. "Susan says she's quite enjoyed your Defense classes. She says, let me see," she squinted at the paper. " _Hermione and Draco make it seem real. They hardly ever agree but I've learned more from their arguments than I ever did in any other Defense class."_

Hermione flushed. "It's not like Defense has ever been a really good class," she muttered.

"No," McGonagall agreed. "Standards have been lamentably low." She set the paper down. "What did you think of Molly Weasley's proposed curriculum?"

Hermione hesitated, then began, in a rush, to tell the Headmistress that is wasn't _bad_ exactly, it just wasn't very practical. Professor Weasley had lined her topics up with what was likely to be on O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s and she was sure that would result in great test scores but Professor Weasley didn't seem to have left room for intellectual exploration or, well, much of what they'd just fought.

McGonagall nodded. "You have some ideas on how to expand it?" she asked.

Hermione did. Oh, how Hermione did. She was about ten minutes into her thoughts on how Potions and Defense could team teach several topics when she stopped and looked at Headmistress McGonagall. "Ma'am," she said, "Could I be so bold as to ask why you care about my opinion on the Defense curriculum?"

Minerva's eyes twinkled. "Didn't I mention that?" she asked. "I would like to ask you to take the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor for next year."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - For myriad reasons, today sucks. My migraine and I are going back to bed. Here's to hoping your head is kinder than mine._**


	152. Chapter 152 (A Meeting with McGonagall)

"You want me to what?"

Hermione wasn't quite sure she'd heard Minerva McGonagall correctly.

"I want you to take over the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor next year." The Headmistress smiled at her. "Well, you and Mr. Malfoy. I'd like the pair of you to team teach the subject with Mr. Malfoy available to do Legilimancy and Occlumency tutoring for what few students would benefit from such instruction."

"But we haven't even taken our N.E.W.T.s," Hermione protested.

Minerva looked rather like a cat considering a mouse that she'd pinned with one paw. "I'm sure you'll excel at your exams, Miss Granger," she said. "You and Mr. Malfoy both. You are exemplary students. No," she said. "I'm not concerned about your examination results."

"But - "

"And the pair of you bring unmatched experience with battling the Dark Arts from two very different perspectives," McGonagall continued. "You are more than capable of organizing a class, as your work this year leading the independent study - as well as the way you kept Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley on track for years - illustrates."

"I'm not good with - "

McGonagall continued on as though Hermione were not stammering out objections. "And Mr. Malfoy has an unexpected gift for working with younger students. That, I have to admit, took me a bit by surprise." She peered at Hermione. "Very few things do. I do try to keep abreast of everything students get up to."

Hermione flushed as she contemplated that myriad things she, Harry, and Ron had gotten away with or, as if may be, had assumed they'd gotten away with. Minerva McGonagall watched her and, after a moment said with more that a touch of smugness, "The toilet, Miss Granger, was hardly an ideal brewing environment."

Hermione wanted to sink into the floor. Instead she mustered her Gryffindor bravado and said, "If we take the position you know that Draco will train up a Slytherin Quidditch team. He won't be able to help himself."

Minerva smiled. "Yes, it's been darling watching him with his little flock and his quaint workaround that gave those girls brooms of their own. Horace and I have had more than one chuckle as they snuck the brooms back into their rooms thinking no one spotted them." She began to gather up the sheets of paper she had spread across her desk and started tucking them back into a folder. "But he's been teaching a few Gryffindors as well and I'm sure he and Madam Hooch can come to an agreement that doesn't step on her toes and lets him indulge his interest in encouraging youth participation in sport." Hermione could feel her mind begin to race as she considered what a perfect solution this was to what to do next year. "I think there are a few Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first years who've felt a bit left out of the fun."

"You really want us - "

"Yes, Miss Granger," McGonagall said. "Set up housekeeping with Mr. Nott and the pair of you can floo in to teach, much as Molly does this year."

Hermione blanched as she realized her opportunity to do this - to shape the way Defense was taught and make the class a good one - was one more thing Molly Weasley would hold against her.

"I've already let Professor Weasley know her appointment was a one year position only," McGonagall said gently. "She won't be returning to teach whether you take my offer or not. She was, as it turned out, not well suited for the work." When Hermione mumbled something about how she doubted that was quite how Molly would see it Minerva McGonagall added, "She's in tremendous pain, you know. It's never going to go away, that loss. But I think she's coming to realize she was wrong to take it out on you and Mr. Malfoy. She may never acknowledge to you that some of her actions this past year have been less than optimal, but I don't think you'll need to worry about any further abuse."

Hermione sat, unsure what to say, and McGonagall smiled. "Go, Miss Granger. Tell Mr. Malfoy of my offer. I have an appointment with him tomorrow but I'm sure you're bursting to talk it over with him. And don't forget to revise that essay. I made a note on the back of the name of a journal I think would be most interested in publishing it."

Recognizing the dismissal Hermione scrambled to her feet mumbling incoherent thanks and promises she wouldn't let the woman down that didn't stop until she was halfway down the stairs.

"Shite," she said as she stopped to lean against the wall. "I have to tell Harry. He's never going to believe I'm next one."

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you for you commiseration on my head. Drugs and sleep are both wonderful things. And, if you celebrate it, Happy Christmas Eve!_**

 ** _I think this part of the story (though the end of the school year and a tiny bit into summer) will round out at about 170 chapters. Then I'll do a quick intermezzo of the two tumblr drabbles, then start Part 2. As the Hogwarts Turns… Look for Blaise to come back in Part 2. If you've got a character you miss, now is the time to tell me. And if you have a cultural event (like Holi) you'd like to see included, now is also the time to tell me that though, beware, you may be volunteering yourself for a beta reading job._**


	153. Chapter 153

"That's not even funny, Hermione." Draco paced as he said it.

Draco had had lots of plans for the afternoon. Theodore was out doing something wholesome and tedious with Susan that probably involved complaining - possibly about him - and that left an almost empty dorm room. Even Clem seemed to be sleeping. Draco had thought Hermione would come over, they'd make a quick pretense at studying for Arithmancy, he'd kiss that spot on her neck that made her putty in the hands he liked to think of as skillful, and the rest would be easy.

Instead she'd shown up agitated and dropped her bag on the floor with a loud crash. That had woken Clem, who'd started chirping so loudly Draco had had to pull her out of her cage and spend at least ten minutes stroking the little creature to calm her down before she'd let him return her to her bed. During that ten minutes Hermione had explained what had transpired in her meeting with McGonagall.

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, fiercest of the lions, a woman even the Carrows had been somewhat cautious around, who had apparently offered him a job.

Him. The Death Eater. The failure. The boy who didn't do anything right.

"The parents would all complain," Draco said. "They'd pull their kids out, send them to, well, not Durmstrang, certainly. Beauxbatons. They'd all send their kids to Beauxbatons."

Hermione leaned forward from where she sat on his bed. She'd kicked her shoes off and folded her feet under her and as she'd explained what McGonagall had said - and something about an essay she had to revise - she watched him with those brown eyes. "I'm not kidding," she said when he started to shake his head. "She wants us to teach Defense and you to help out with flying and something about Occlumency."

"Hermione," Draco said desperately, "people don't even want me back as a _student_. They'll never let her - "

"You'll be great," Hermione said. "You'd be so good at it, Draco. Don't let fear of the owls she'll get stop you."

He considered having a job, an actual job. He didn't need the money, of course. But that wasn't the important thing; the important thing was that he'd be… it was a type of forgiveness. Oh, Merlin, if she meant it, if this was real, he'd be the best teacher Hogwarts had ever seen.

Well, the best next to Hermione of course.

She reached a hand out and took his as he stood in front of her, hope and disbelief warring on his face. "I'm not going to take the job unless you do," she said.

Draco let her pull him down next to her on his bed. Clem let out a last, sleepy chirp from her cage as Draco held himself with rigid self-control. "You have to take it," he said.

Hermione lay back down against his pillow and smirked up at him and he was reminded of the first night they'd spent star-gazing when he'd seen her as _not_ just the swotty sidekick but a woman with a devilish streak to her. "Can't see why," she said now. "You tell me you have enough money to keep up both in luxury for our whole lives. I can live with Theodore, spend your galleons, maybe take up embroidery. I don't need a job."

Draco looked down at her as she laughed up at him, making a face reminiscent of the most arrogant of pureblood women, her nose wrinkled at the very thought of having to do something so plebeian as work for a living. "You'd be bored within a week," he predicted. "You'd go absolutely mental sitting around Nott Manor sewing things."

She shrugged. "If you don't take the job, I'm not taking it either." When he didn't respond, she added, "You can do your Malfoy thing from Hogwarts as easily as you could from Nott Manor, you know."

He began to smile. "You are a manipulative little thing," he said. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. She'd spent the whole year with either himself or Theodore. She'd ended up friends with Pansy and, to be honest, it wasn't as if she'd been wholly transparent and aboveboard even before this year what with all that sneaking around she'd done with Potter and Weasley.

He lay down next to her, pushing his shoes off with his toes because having shoes on the bed was simply not done, and began lifting her hair away from her neck. An errant strand tickled his nose and, before he could stop himself, he sneezed. She laughed and, as he pressed his lips to the spot on her neck he'd been thinking about for a while, he murmured, "I do love you, Hermione Granger."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Merry Christmas!_**


	154. Chapter 154 (Hermione Gets a Letter)

Hermione took the thick, cream envelope from the owl and turned it curiously in her hand. She glanced over at Theodore who shrugged and, with a lift of her eyebrows, she broke open the silver wax seal. She read the letter first once, then a second time, and then passed it to Theodore without a word.

He read it then, without looking up, asked, "Where's Draco this morning?"

"Flying with Andy and Ginny," she said. "He needed to let off some steam after talking to McGonagall."

"Huh," Theo said. "What do you think?" He handed the paper back to Hermione who read it again and sucked in the bottom corner of her lip.

 _Dear Miss Granger,_

 _Draco informs us you and he plan on living with Theodore when you leave Hogwarts. I understand your own parents will not be able to help with your move so I hope you will not take it amiss if I offer assistance in their place._

 _Respectfully,_

 _Lucius Malfoy_

She looked back at Theodore and said, "What do I think? Honestly?" Theodore nodded. "I have no idea what to think."

Theodore began to grin at her as an idea overtook him. "I hope you don't expect him to help you lug boxes himself." They both contemplated that image and Hermione began to giggle as she imagined the Malfoy patriarch carrying box after box of her books from where she'd left them at Grimmauld Place, with Walburga Black shrieking her outrage from her portrait anytime her curtain was disturbed, and apparating them to Nott Manor.

"Surely not," she said around that thought. "Dirty his own hands with actual work? Surely he means he'd hire someone."

"Oh, without a doubt," Theodore said. "But, admit it, you like the image of seeing Lucius Malfoy carrying boxes." They looked at one another. "Still," Theodore said into the pause. "That's quite an offer."

"What do I do?" Hermione asked him. Theodore's relationship with his pureblood heritage might be complicated but he knew the rules and she was very sure there was a way she was supposed to respond to this.

Theodore sighed. "You accept," he said. "But only in some token way. Tell him you have the move taken care of but you'd be most grateful if he could do some trivial thing that takes no effort at all."

"Like what?" she demanded.

Theodore shrugged. "Maybe have him find some childhood thing of Draco's? Some book you can pretend is suddenly vitally important to his happiness or some practice Snitch or something and he'll bring it over with a bottle of good wine and then you'll ask him to stay and have a glass and he'll say he can't and you'll insist and then he will and then hell will freeze because Lucius Malfoy will be accepting hospitality from you."

Hermione's fingers tightened on the note until Theodore reached over and pulled it from her hand. He smoothed the paper out and then tucked it down into her bag. "Draco hasn't confronted his parents yet." She said the words so quietly Theodore had to lean in to her to be sure he heard correctly. "I know he hasn't. He's terrified they'll reject him, terrified they'll insist he choose."

"He'd choose you," Theodore said, his words as soft as hers.

"I know," she said. She looked into his eyes as if she could will him to understand. "But that would… I don't know what that would do this him."

Theodore nodded. "Maybe his father, at least, understands that," he said. "They do love him, Hermione. I know it's hard to fathom when they're acting like this, like the way they did at Easter, but they really do… they think they'd do anything for him. They think they're doing the best thing for him."

"Like your dad?" she asked. Theodore thrust out his jaw and turned away from her. "He loves you, Theodore, you know he does."

"He killed people." Theodore said the words, his voice totally flat, and Hermione nodded. "He would have killed _you_."

"He loves you," she said. "Why don't you go tell him we went to your mother's grave and put flowers on it like he asked?"

"Because I'm scared," Theodore said. Hermione took his hand in hers and held on. "Just like Draco. What if I'm like him?"

"I'm sure you are in some ways," she said. "You can keep the good, Theodore. He's still the man who listened to your piano recitals."

"And a murderer," Theo whispered.

"When are you going to go?" she asked but he just shook his head and she didn't push any longer.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - There is a Boxing Day drabble about Pansy and her beau on tumblr. You'll find it at colubrina DOT tumblr DOT com SLASH tagged/stuff-i-write_**


	155. Chapter 155 (A Visitor in the Garden)

Hermione crossed another box off in the calendar that counted down until the day of her N.E.W.T. exams and bit her lip as she looked from the pile of books on her desk to the window showing the sun warming the late spring air. She decided to compromise and grabbed one Arithmancy book she'd checked out of the library and headed down to the walled herb garden to enjoy the outdoors.

"Hard to believe we're almost done with Hogwarts, isn't it?" Hannah asked. She'd obviously had the same idea and was already there, seated on a bench with a basket of what looked like biscuits and fruit on the ground in front of her. "Help yourself," she said.

Hermione mumbled thanks, pulled an apple out of Hannah's basket and settled down on a bench. She hadn't told anyone other than Theodore she and Draco planned to stay and teach and had asked McGonagall to put off making any kind of announcement until the summer. "It feels a bit unlucky," she'd admitted to the Headmistress, "like telling people before I've passed my N.E.W.T. in the subject is tempting fate or something."

"Well," Pansy said, appearing out of the doorway. "I see I'm not the only person who had this idea today." She snagged a chocolate covered biscuit from Hannah's basket and grinned at the woman. "How does it feel to finally win the House Cup?"

"We haven't won it yet," Hannah demurred but Pansy just laughed. Hufflepuff was so far ahead they would have to resurrect Voldemort to lose enough points to see the Cup snatched from their victorious fingers.

One by one the rest of the eighth years, called by sun and a warm spring day and the taste of freedom from classes and studying that hid just over the horizon, slipped out into the herb garden as well. Draco sat behind Hermione, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair. Susan was far more comfortable gloating about the House Cup and came out the door teasing Theodore that at last Harry Potter wasn't around to get thousands of points just for breathing and Slytherin _still_ hadn't managed to win. "Hard work pays off," she said with a smirk as she began to root around in Hannah's basket. "How did you know to pack all this stuff?" she asked. Hannah shrugged and said something vague about how it was good to be prepared.

When Neville came out looking startled to see them all Pansy let out a snicker. "You just wanted to be prepared," she said. "Right."

"We could go," Theodore said as he stood up from the bench he'd selected, not looking at Neville. "I'm sure you two want to be alone."

"It's fine," Neville said, turning red.

"It is, " Hannah insisted. "We've all been so busy we haven't all just sat and been friends in a while."

Theodore sank back down and took the apple Susan handed him and put a neat smile on his face. "Quite," he said. "What are everyone's plans after we ride the magic boats across the lake and leave this place?"

Before they could answer with their stories of jobs and internships and, in Susan's case, no idea whatsoever, Padma came out. "Are those biscuits?" she asked, spotting the one in Pansy's hand. " _Chocolate_ biscuits?" She knelt down and rooted through the basket until she found two more. "I could kiss you," she told Hannah as she bit into one. "If I had to review one more boring article on Dragon Pox I was going to scream. Or faint. Or maybe both. My brain," she announced, "is full." She popped the rest of her first biscuit in her mouth as the group tried not to stare. "What?" she finally demanded. "It's not like the rest of you don't have crumbs on your mouths, you know."

Pansy wiped her mouth and then said, "You're eating _biscuits_."

"I like biscuits," Padma said, her look challenging the other woman to press the issue.

She might have but a stray cat caught her eye and she cocked her head to the side to regard the orange tom that had sauntered into the garden. He held his tail high, one ear had been half torn away from some fight in his past, and a line of scar tissue ran down the side of his face, barely missing an eye. "Well," Pansy said, "Aren't you a handsome boy. Where did _you_ come from?"

Hermione looked up from her book and let out a strangled gasp right before the cat - half kneazle, really - jumped up into her lap and began purring. "Crookshanks," she said, crying for reasons she didn't understand at all. "Where have you _been_?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, lovely people!_**


	156. Chapter 156 (Presents)

Draco lifted each plate out of the box the owl had delivered that morning and checked for cracks or chips before setting it aside to wrap. Theodore watched him with muted amusement. "You know that Hermione is going to kill you when she finds out about this," he said at last as Draco, having confirmed that everything had arrived in one piece, began to wrap the plates again, this time spelling the paper to be pretty.

"She's still holed up with Pansy and that cat of hers," Draco said. "After she introduced it to Clem and told him Clem wasn't food, they took off to do some kind of animal wellness care." He glanced over at his friend. "That may be the ugliest cat I've ever seen."

Clem chirped in apparent protest.

"Well," Theodore said, "not everyone is drawn to the fluffy and the purple, Draco."

Clem chirped again and Theodore sighed and looked over at the creature. Crookshanks had defied all logical expectations by not eating the thing. Instead he'd sniffed at the Pygmy Puff, given it one lick on the top of its purple head and that was that. Theodore fully expected to find the damn beast carrying the Puff around his manor like a precious toy.

"It's a really ugly cat," Draco repeated.

He'd never seen a cat quite so ugly as Hermione's beloved Crookshanks. The creature was scarred and scraped up but it was clear that even before his survivalist jaunt in the woods around Hogwarts he hadn't been a pretty cat. His face was squashed and his eyes seemed to be crossed in an unending glower. His long, orange fur had been unmatted and at first Pansy had suggested he had to have been living with some other family but Hermione had fessed up she'd long ago spelled the cat's hair to stay magically untangled "It was just a variation on something I used on my hair but his fur was always getting matted and it hurt him and - ."

Pansy had demanded Hermione teach her the charm at once.

"I suggest you learn to love it," Theodore said. "Where did you even find those?" He pointed toward the plates Draco continued to wrap with immense care.

"Owl order," Draco said. "You left all your Christmas catalogs around and I was bored and flipping through them one day and there these beauties were. I got the complete set." He patted the stack. "Ginny will love them."

"Ginny," Theodore said, "will probably laugh so hard she'll piss herself. Hermione, however, might kill you."

Draco waved away that possibility. "I'm going to talk to my mum this afternoon," he said. "Dad's offer to help move us means she has to come around. When I come back and tell Hermione I've finally dealt with that little problem, she'll be so happy she won't even care about these."

"I think you underestimate her willingness to go after people," Theodore said. "I hear Marietta Edgecombe is going to be scarred for life, and we all know about the Umbridge thing."

"Centaurs," Draco said. He looked momentarily nervous but then shook it off. "She's not going to send me to the centaurs. I'm not torturing the man, or hitting him, or anything. I'm just - "

"Giving his girlfriend commemorative plates with his face all over them. Harry Potter dessert plates."

"Presents are traditional upon the cessation of formal schooling," Draco said in as prissy a voice as he could summon. "And how can you resist this one with the red and gold swirls and the golden spell coming out of his wand and his solemn face looking all momentous."

Theodore pushed himself up so he could look at the plate Draco meant. "He looks constipated," he said.

"Right?" Draco regarded the plate with absolute pleasure. "I thought about giving them to him but he'd just send them back in pieces. Ginny might make him keep them." He sighed with delight. "She might even make him hang one on the wall."

Theodore laughed. "You are such a little shite," he said. "War, madmen, suffering, nothing can wipe out that you are, at your core, a complete and utter shiteheel."

Draco grinned at him. He'd turned back to the plates to finish wrapping them before he said, all humor leeched from his voice. "We still going to see your dad tomorrow?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - *waves*_**


	157. Chapter 157

"Mum." Draco leaned into the library where Narcissa Malfoy was laying on a chaise, her fingers flipping though a book as though she hadn't a care in the world and so spent her afternoons in languid ease. Only the slight tightening at the corner of her mouth revealed she'd been waiting for him to arrive.

"Draco," she said, setting her book down. "How lovely to see you."

He smiled and sat down on the footstool oh-so-conveniently placed at her side. His arm itched and his mouth felt dry. "Mum," he said again. "We need to talk."

She dimpled at him, though the smile didn't reach her eyes. "Four words that never presage anything good," she said. "What is the matter, dear heart?"

"I am engaged to Hermione Granger," he said. Her eyelashes fluttered but she didn't say anything so he pressed on. "I love her very much, and for some reason she seems to feel the same way."

"You're a Malfoy," his mother said. "And a Black,. You're more than a catch for any Mugg -"

"I can assure you," he said, cutting her off as sweat began to trickle down his side, "she doesn't like me for my heritage." He rubbed at his face and sighed. "I don't even like me for my heritage."

That made his mother stiffen, all pretense at lazy indifference gone. "Your family is part of you," she said. "They helped make you, they - "

"Joined a bloody madman," he said, the words too loud. "I'm sorry," he said, moderating his tone. "I love you, mum, but Aunt Bella, she - "

"Always pure," his mother said. She bit the words out. "We are _always pure_ , Draco Malfoy." She put her hand on his knee and he thought about how she'd shown him how to trim a rose in her garden, how she'd sent him cakes every year. She'd risked everything for him. His lower lip began to tremble as if he were a child and he stared at her, fighting back tears that threatened to spill out.

"You didn't acknowledge her at the party." He said the words so softly they were almost a whisper. "She stood at my side and Potter _toasted_ us and you didn't say a thing."

His arm itched so much it was all he could do to keep from rubbing at it. He wanted to run from the room and find something - anything - sharp.

"She's not good enough for you," his mother said. "If your father and I don't acknowledge your - "

"I can back out?" Draco asked her. "I'm not going to. I'm _never_ going to. We're going to live at Theo's and work together and be _happy_. She makes me _happy_."

His mother closed her eyes. "Draco," she began. "This is… this is not what I was raised to see as a good thing. My sister was burned from the family because she married a mud…a Muggle-born."

He nodded and stood to go. He understood her difficulty but he was tired of excusing it. "Don't make me choose, mum," he said. "You won't like the result."

In the corridor he met his father. Lucius Malfoy had never quite regained his bearing after his stint in Azkaban and his later experiences with the monster in his home. "It didn't go well?" he asked, leaning heavily on his cane, his once-regal face haggard and filled with the ghosts of too many poor choices to count.

"'Always pure'," Draco repeated bitterly. "That's what she had to say. Always-bloody-pure. Are you going to tell me purity always conquers now?"

Lucius sighed and eased himself into a chair. "My advice, for what it's worth," he said, "is don't go to Azkaban. It's bad for the joints."

Draco's eyes clouded with worry. "Have you seen a healer," he asked. He felt the stirrings of familiar self-hatred. He'd been so absorbed in his own romance and his own resentful feelings he hadn't stopped to think about his father.

Lucius gave him a wan smile. "They have me on more potions than I can count," he said. "Some days are just worse than others." He sighed. "Purity does always conquer," he said. When Draco began to pull away, Lucius shook his head. "Listen to me," he said. "Stop making the mistake I did and thinking purity means only some kind of reinforced bloodline, like we're prize breeding kneazles or something."

Draco thought of Hermione's hideous half-kneazle and smiled against his will.

"Purity can mean," Lucius thought for a moment, "the pure of heart. The pure of… your friend Potter's a half blood but he conquered."

"Prick's pure of heart all right," Draco muttered.

"Language," Lucius said, almost automatically. "You will make everything as it was," he said. "Our family, our line."

"I'll do it with a Muggle-born," Draco said, the words a challenge.

"Just try to do it without carving up your arm," Lucius said. Then, as Draco stared at him, he pulled himself to his feet. "I think I'll go sit in the solarium. The heat helps some days." He was halfway down the hall, Draco still staring after them, when he added, "Your mother will come around. She loves you."

Draco nodded.

"Son," Lucius added before he turned a corner. "I love you as well. Perhaps you and I and your fiancée can meet for dinner in Diagon Alley sometime soon?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello! Sorry for the late post. Between the trip to the vet over roads that barely met the definition of 'plowed' and the delivery of the replacement dishwasher it was a morning to drive a person back to bed._**


	158. Chapter 158 (A Visit to Azkaban: 1 of 2)

Theodore Nott, who was not a Death Eater, who could summon a patronus, who had friends and love and a manor he was slowly filling with other lost children, stood in the waiting room of Azkaban Prison, his childhood best friend at his side, and wished he had a drink. If he had a drink he could do this.

Or two drinks.

Maybe three.

With enough alcohol in his system he could face this place and the man he'd come to see. Hermione had offered to come with him, a watchful look behind her eyes, but he'd refused. Susan had begged him to let her come. "I'll just wait for you," she'd said. "I won't intrude. Theodore, please," but he'd told her no. He wasn't ready for these friends - these non-pureblood friends - to meet his father. He wasn't sure what his father would say to the Muggle-born - the Mudblood - who'd helped put him in this place.

He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. Wasn't sure he wanted to have to defend someone, and wasn't even sure who he'd defend. His father, with the pureblood ideology he'd taken past polite social disdain into violent, horrifying extremism? The friend who was part of a despised minority, one who people felt good and progressive for tolerating? The father he loved? The friend he loved?

He was a coward, and he knew it, so he'd told Hermione and Susan both no and had come without them. Draco he could bring. His father liked Draco, the pureblood scion, even if he might consider Lucius a little showy with those peacocks and that cane.

Theodore's hands shook and his jaw clenched as he waited for the guards to tell him his father had been brought to the visiting room. He and Draco had already been frisked and their wands had been confiscated. The guard had glared at him and suggested he was trying to bring in contraband because he'd had half a biscuit stowed in the bottom of a pocket and long forgotten. Theodore had bitten his tongue and said nothing; he'd picked up quickly enough that any kind of attitude would get them thrown out, visitation denied. The guard had sneered at Draco's Mark and Theodore had ached for the friend who stood at his side, condemned by this stranger for choices he'd never had to face.

It's easy, isn't it, he'd wanted to say, when the wolf isn't at your door. It's easy to condemn what other people do to survive. I'd be noble, you think. I would have refused.

Neither he nor Draco said anything, however; they just stared at their shoes and let the guard sneer, knowing he know more would have refused to take the Mark than he would have thrown himself off a cliff. If there had been a quick flash in Draco's eyes when he looked at Theodore, one that suggested he knew if things had gone another way the man who condemned them would have groveled at their feet, well, Theodore didn't acknowledge it with more than a tight smile.

As the wait dragged on Theodore began to worry. What if his father couldn't come out? What if he were ill, or had been in a fight? What if this whole trip had been for nothing? Would he be able to work the courage up to come again? He desperately wanted to take Draco's hand and squeeze it for comfort, would have done it without a second thought if it had been Hermione standing there, but he knew the last thing he needed was to add "homo" to the list of reasons the guards condemned him.

"You can go in now," a guard said. He stood in the doorway of the waiting room and let Theodore walk past. When Draco slid after him the guard 'accidentally' shoved his body against the slighter man, knocking him into a wall. Draco's eyes flashed to the name tag on the man's uniform but he didn't still didn't say anything and merely straightened up and followed Theodore into the visiting room. Stone walls loomed over a metal table. Two uncomfortable looking chairs were chained to it and a thin, elderly man sat in one of them. His hands were bound to the table in front of him, his hair long, his eyes haggard.

"Forgive me for not standing to greet you," he said. "I am afraid I am somewhat inconvenienced." Thoros Nott took a deep breath. "It's good to see you, son," he said.

"Dad," Theodore said helplessly. "Daddy."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm sorry?_**


	159. Chapter 159 (A Visit to Azkaban: 2 of 2)

Draco stayed back and out of the way during Theodore's visit with his father. He examined his fingernails while Theodore talked about how he'd gone to lay flowers on his mother's grave the way his father had asked, only glancing up when his friend used Hermione's name with an almost defiant cadence. Thoros Nott's eyes clouded at the mention of the infamous Muggle-born and Draco braced himself for a scathing remark or, perhaps, the type of polite condemnation his own mother specialized in. Something like, they could be very useful, Muggle-borns, but Theodore mustn't let her encroach or get ideas above her station.

Other than the look in his eyes, however, one he quickly hid, Thoros gave no indication he had any idea who Hermione Granger was or had any opinions on the matter. "It's good to have friends," was all he said.

Draco studied his shoes, noting there were scuffs on the toes and his own father wouldn't approve of that, as Theodore told his father he'd learned to make a patronus. "Tricky magic, that," Thoros said. "I'm proud of you."

"I'd show you," Theodore said, "but - "

"They take the wands, I know," Thoros said. "Calla - your mother - was a fiercely powerful witch." Draco glanced up again to see a forlorn smile on the face of the Nott patriarch. "A beautiful woman, of course, but one of the things I loved about her was her power. You get your strength from her. There wasn't a spell she couldn't do and she made me feel like…." He stopped and seemed to ponder what to say and finally just settled on, "I loved her very much."

"I miss her," Theodore said. "I miss _you_."

"You have her smile." Thoros ignored what Theodore had said about missing him. "I see her in you. Your light, your heart." Draco could hear a rattle when the man took a deep breath and suddenly straightened up and stared intently at the older man. He didn't look well. Azkaban had ruined Lucius Malfoy's health and he had a been a man in the prime of his life when he went in. Thoros Nott didn't look well at all. "I hope you find a partner who will make you as happy as she made me."

Theodore stiffened at the careful choice of words. "Daddy," he whispered uncertainly.

"Of course I know," Thoros said. Draco watched as the man regarded his son with unwavering eyes. "I've known since you were so little you still believed in nursery fairies." The man tried to reach a hand out toward his son and seemed to be shocked when he realized he was chained to the table. "I had hoped you would tell me yourself, but the last few years have been… I have not been a good father."

"You were always the best father," Theodore choked out. Draco turned away. It seemed wrong to be here, wrong to be intruding on this moment. "When I make the patronus, one of the things I think of is your face at that piano recital, the one where I got halfway through the wrong song before I realized… the best of fathers."

"I remember that recital," Thoros Nott said. Draco could hear the smile in the man's voice. "I was always so happy to hear you play."

"I wasn't very good," Theodore objected. Draco could hear the way his friend struggled not to cry.

"I would have rather listened to you than to anyone." Thoros paused and then said, "People may try to condemn you, Theodore. For me. Because you are…who you are. What you are."

Draco cringed at the polite side stepping.

"Don't… you are a member of one of the proudest and oldest families in wizarding Britain. You cannot be judged by them." Thoros coughed and for a moment he stopped talking as his shoulders shook with the force of the spasm and Draco's worry grew. Spittle and bloody phlegm hung on the man's chin and Theodore reached across the table and used his sleeve to wipe it away. "Promise me you will be true to yourself and unashamed." He coughed again. "You are Sacred Twenty-Eight. Anything you do becomes… right."

"I won't have an heir." Theodore said the words sharply but his father just let out a small laugh.

"Adopt some boy," he said. "Or don't. Your happiness is what matters, Theodore. Only that."

Draco and Theodore were back on the mainland, wands returned with sneers Draco didn't even notice, before he said it. "You have to go back," he said. "As often as you can. I'll come whenever you want me to. Hermione will come and make those guards eat their… but you have to."

Theodore looked at him. The tears hung at the corners of his eyes but didn't fall. "I don't want to be an orphan, Draco," he said. "Not me too."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, lovely people, for spending a few minutes of your day with this little fic._**


	160. Chapter 160 (Draco Gets a Letter)

"I can't do anything!" Draco threw down the parchment he'd received with the morning post from his father with disgust and glared at Theodore, as if whatever were frustrating him were somehow the other man's fault. "We've lost so much influence… I can get papers misplaced, and I can have people fired, and that guard who shoved me has already had six discipline flags added to his file so one more and he'll be out of a job, but I can't get your father released into St. Mungo's."

He looked down and took a deep breath, calming himself with what seemed to be an act of will. "I'm so sorry, Theodore. I've tried. Hermione's tried. She wrote Kingsley and begged him - actually begged him - to do a compassionate release for any prisoners who were sick and needed medical care."

"No one cares if he rots and dies," Theodore said. "Not any of them." He had tried not to think about his father's poor health. The man was elderly and suffering and he'd been horrible - he'd caused so many deaths - but whenever Theodore thought about the frail man with his hands chained to the table, his throat began to close and his eyes began to burn and he felt a kind of rage in his soul that made him understand how his father had done some of the things he'd done.

He didn't like that knowledge.

Better to hide. Better to not admit he'd burn that place down to get his murderous bastard of a father who he loved out if he thought for a moment it would work.

He hadn't realized Draco and Hermione had been petitioning for his release or that Draco had pulled every string he could get his hands on with the Malfoy influence and money to see it done. Knowing that brought the familiar lump to his throat along with the familiar craving.

"Thank you for trying," he said, the words acid in his mouth. "Thank you for - "

"It's not enough," Draco said, showing his rage more.

"He was a Death Eater," Theodore said.

"So was I," Draco said. He shoved his sleeve up and brandished the Mark at Theodore. "So was I. So was my father, and let's not pretend he was some saint. He believed all that rot, the same as yours did. Killed for it. Schemed for it." Draco took a deep breath. "Why does your father - who's dying, Theodore, dying! - have to stay in that place when so many other's bought their way free or found some way of claiming duress?" He let out a harsh laugh. "None of them were under duress. I was in those meetings. I _saw_ them."

Theodore looked down. "I know," he said.

"I didn't mean," Draco began, then sighed. "I just want him to be in a hospital," he said. "Getting decent care. I'm going to keep trying." When Theodore glanced over at his friend he was rubbing his face with his hand. "Hermione's really outraged, you know. And Susan is… if Hufflepuffs go on the warpath, she's on it."

"She thinks it's not fair?" Theodore asked. He couldn't imagine that; there was no question his father was guilty. He'd been a willing participant. Was he remorseful now? Theodore wasn't even sure. He knew his father was sorry his actions had made life more difficult for his son but whether he saw them as truly wrong Theodore didn't know.

He supposed he never would.

"Susan," Draco said, "believes keeping sick people in prison is morally unacceptable." He sighed. "Truth is, because she's a Bones and not from a family tainted by war or," he hesitated, hating the reality of what he was about to day but Theodore said it first, sparing him.

"Or a Muggle-born," he said. "People still see Hermione as a bit of a peculiar oddity. Brave and a hero, yes, but _different_."

"Less," Draco whispered.

"Less," Theodore repeated. Then he mimicked a Ministry official. "Miss Granger, you are so noble, so _good_ to be concerned about filth like these prisoners, but you don't really understand wizarding culture. Have a lolly and go on now, little girl."

Draco couldn't control the bitter laugh. "Well, you have no illusions," he said.

"None," Theodore agreed. "Not anymore."

But that Susan was trying - Susan _Bones_ \- gave him the tiniest bit of hope.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy New Year! May 2016 bring us peace and happiness and a more compassionate world._**


	161. Chapter 161 (A Hufflepuff Interlude)

**(a hufflepuff interlude)**

Susan Bones crumbled the letter she'd gotten from the Ministry in an uncharacteristic fit of fury. She was angry. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd felt something as direct and simple and outraged as the emotion making her fists clench right now. The hidebound, idiotic, ridiculous, pathetic Ministry had told her no when she was quite _quite_ certain she was in the right.

"They said no?" Hannah asked unnecessarily from where she was sprawled out on her bed in the dorm room they shared. The basic content of the response was obvious.

"They suggested that maybe I didn't remember what these people did." Susan smoothed out the parchment and began to read. " _In answer to your question, no, there is no extant program for medical release of aging prisoners, nor are there any plans to create such. Perhaps you have forgotten, but these are not just elderly pensioners, Miss Bones. These people, Mr. Nott included, are mass murderers and rapists and they belong in Azkaban and that is where they shall remain."_ She set the letter down with exaggerated control and turned an expectant eye on Hannah. "They had the gall to suggest that I _might have forgotten_ what Death Eaters did." She clenched her jaw and ground out, "I wonder how many people he lost in the war."

"Anything else?" Hannah asked.

"They've approved my request to clerk for a member of the Wizengamot," Susan said. "They've warned me it's unpaid, of course, but they're so pleased to be able to help dear Amelia's niece get her start." The dripping condescension in the letter had also made her angry but she could hear Draco's voice in her head telling her to just make use of the opening that came to hand and to get her revenge later.

Susan looked at the letter and considered how long it would take a really ambitious person with the right family background and the support of long time players in British politics to climb to a position where she could effect change. Too long. It would take too long. No matter how hard she worked, she'd never move fast enough to get Theodore's father into St. Mungo's where he belonged. It was unfair. It was wrong.

"They won't know what hit them," Hannah said softly.

Susan nodded. "Unafraid of toil," she said, her own voice an answering whisper.

"They all write us off," Hannah said. "We aren't as showy as the Gryffindors, who charge into any battle, and we aren't as sly as people like Pansy and Draco with their pureblood ancestry and their generations of entrenched power, and we don't have that reputation for brilliance Ravenclaw does. We're the ones who bring the snacks to the meetings. We're the leftovers who didn't fit anywhere else."

Susan looked at her. "That's what they think," she agreed.

Hannah opened a book and said, her voice deceptively idle, "There's a lot you can do if you aren't afraid of hard work and care about what's right more than about getting credit."

Susan pulled out a sheet of parchment and began writing back, thanking the bureaucrat who'd told her, no, they couldn't just let Thoros Nott out to die at home, wandless and weak. He was a monster and deserved to suffer.

"If this is who we've become," she said as her quill moved in neat lines across the paper writing politically bland words and accepting the unpaid clerk position with all appropriate humility and gratitude, "if we're letting old men die in drafty cells because we're afraid or we revel in their pain, if we think that somehow rights the scales for the way we suffered, then we're no better than he-who-must… than Voldemort was."

Hannah asked, "Are you doing this because it's right or because it's Theodore's father? Because you know you won't be able to - "

"I know," Susan said. "He'll die long before… and I probably wouldn't know about it if it weren't for Theodore because it wouldn't have occurred to me but… it's not _right_ Hannah."

Susan had spent a long time thinking about this and the more she thought the less conflicted and angrier she got. She'd lost her childhood to a war and she'd lost her family to a war and she'd lost everything to a war and she refused to accept the idea that more losses were somehow good.

"They'll never see you coming," Hannah said with what sounded like utter satisfaction. "They all think you're just a boring, ordinary Hufflepuff."

Susan tossed her hair. "I have been told I am the Roderick Plumpton of oral sex by not one but three different boys. I am most certainly neither boring nor ordinary."

Hannah laughed. "You're compassionate," she said. "That's what you are, are more than Thoros Nott deserves."

Susan went back to writing her letter. "Are we only supposed to show compassion to people who deserve it?"

. . . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - You know my feelings on messing with Hufflepuffs. (If you don't… colubrina DOT tumblr DOT com /post/126248824811/people-should-be-more-scared-of-hufflepuffs** )


	162. Chapter 162 (A Classroom Conversation)

And then they were done. Exams were sat and school was over and all the shoulders that had been braced for some kind of horrible showdown with a Dark arts wielding monster began to ease. They'd made it. A whole school year with nothing exceptionally, awfully bad.

Theodore continued to visit his father every weekend and, if he refused to talk about anything they said, he also stayed sober. Hermione took to going with him so she could smile at the guards and make them uneasy while Susan spent long hours researching legal precedent in the library. Both Neville and Harry joined the list of people whose requests to institute a compassionate release program were politely rebuffed by Ministry of Magic officials with what appeared to be a form letter.

To end their education at Hogwarts, the seventh and eighth years all sat through a presentation with their parents and family friends that managed to combine tediousness and sanctimony into one, long ceremony. Kingsley spoke. At length. Afterwards if you asked Hermione what he'd talked about she would mutter that she had no idea; by that point all she could think about was that she had to pee. He then deftly avoided being cornered by any of the eighth year students and disappeared back to London as soon as his speech was over.

Hermione ran into Ron Weasley, at Hogwarts with his family to see his sister, in the corridor on her way back from her escape to the toilet. The pair of them looked at one another in awkward silence until Ron said, "You look good."

"Thanks," Hermione said. There was a long pause before she said, "You too."

He shrugged. "I saw the article in the _Prophet,_ " he said. "You're really marrying him?" His eyes fell to the tiny ring on her hand. "I guess you are." His mouth tightened into the determined line of a man telling himself he will not cry. He turned and walked away from her, into a classroom, and Hermione followed. It seemed like they should have a conversation but she wasn't sure how to begin and so they just stared at one another in the empty room until Ron crossed over to look out over the grounds and left Hermione standing her hands hanging uselessly at her sides. "I'm sorry about the paper," Ron said after a minute, glancing back at her. "I just wanted to hurt you but I didn't think… I'm sorry."

Hermione shrugged. "I've dealt with worse," she said. "They retracted it when I asked and, well, I'll probably continue to deal with worse because of Draco for years to come. You aren't the only one who isn't ready to forgive." She let out a laugh that hid all the times she'd bit down on the inside of her lip to not react to slurs whispered at her in the hallways. "I'm getting used to being called a Death Eater lover."

Ron flinched and turned away.

"I hated you for a bit after you ended it," Ron said. He had his hands on the windowsill and his eyes fixed on some point outdoors. A tree, maybe, or a rock. What mattered was that it wasn't her. "You said things… you can be cruel, Hermione."

She swallowed hard and nodded. "I'm sorry," she said, knowing the words weren't enough; she'd meant to hurt him with the things she'd hurled at him. I don't trust you, she'd said. You only think about yourself, she'd said. You're selfish and you'll never be as good as Harry. That last had been the cruelest twist of the knife; we can hurt people we love because we know their weaknesses. "I think I knew if I didn't really kill everything I'd stay and spend years resenting you and thinking you'd leave if it got rough."

Ron nodded a bit jerkily. "I don't understand," he said. "How can you forgive Malfoy and not me?"

She sighed. "It's not fair," she admitted. " It's just… I never trusted him or relied on him or loved him when he was… and I did you and you left anyway."

"You loved me," Ron said, the words forlorn. "You could love me again."

"It was never right for us," she said. She sat down, already too exhausted by this brief conversation to stand anymore, and leaned against the hard wooden back of the chair. "I loved you, you loved me, but we were always at cross purposes. We just… we never _got_ each other, it was never easy."

"And it's easy with Malfoy," Ron said, the words laced with bitterness. "With the rich boy it's easy."

"See," Hermione said. "That's it. It's not… it's not because of that. We just understand each other without having to… it's not fair. I know it's not fair. He was a jerk to me for years. He was everything we fought against. He was a snot and a prat and an arrogant entitled… but I… I understand him. And he understands me." She sighed. "If it's any consolation I do forgive you for the thing where you left. You were scared and had a bit of evil on a string around your neck. It's not that. It's that we just don't _fit,_ you and I. We make each other unhappy."

"That's not a consolation," Ron said. "That makes it worse."

Hermione let her head sink down onto her hand and it rested there as she watched Ron stare out the window. "I miss being friends," she said after a bit. "You were one of my best friends for years. Could we - "

"No," he said. "Don't you dare give me the 'let's just be friends' talk. Not after the things you said. Not when you're engaged to _Malfoy_."

Hermione could feel the lump in her throat and she looked a the back of the ginger head she'd loved and trusted and followed for years. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"Me too," he said. His voice caught. "I still love you, Hermione. I wish it had been different."

"If wishes were horses," Hermione murmured then said, "Do you think we can try again to be… something? Civil, at least? For Harry and Ginny?"

"I can be civil," Ron said. "Even to your ferret. I don't think I can ever… we'll never be friends, me and Malfoy. Never. I just… I can't. Even if that makes me selfish, I can't."

Hermione wanted to ask again if they could be friends but didn't. Right now she took what he could give and just said, "I'd appreciate that."

Ron turned and said, his eyes bleak, "So this is goodbye. Do we hug?"

Hermione nodded around the pain in her chest and stood so they could wrap their arms around each other. He seemed to hold on for a moment as if willing the memory into his brain and then let her go. "I'll see you around," he said.

She nodded and left him there in the Hogwarts classroom, alone.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning to the nicest readers in our fandom!_**


	163. Chapter 163 (Pansy's Guy Revealed)

Pansy climbed out of the boat once their ceremonial ride was over and swore as she stepped in mud at the side of the lake. "Stupidest ritual ever," she muttered. "Going back across the lake the opposite way we did as first years."

Hermione climbed out behind her and mumbled agreement as her own high heel caught on a rock. When she looked up her eyes widened because Pansy was getting swept up into a hug by -

"Charlie _Weasley_?" Hermione said. " _That's_ who your mystery beau is?"

The ginger man grinned at her. He had his hair tied back with a leather strap into a loose pony tail and there was a small burn scar on one cheek that looked like it had come from a dragon incident gone wrong. "Nice to see you too, Hermione," he said.

Padma clambered out of the boat next, followed by Susan and Ginny. "Does Mum know?" the latter demanded.

Charlie, one arm still sling around Pansy Parkinson's shoulder, shook his head. "And I'd appreciate you not telling her until I do so I can do my best to head off her trademark hysterics," he said.

"How long has this been going on!" Ginny's hands were on her hips and she looked like she might be prepared to deliver a Weasley tirade of her own. "Pansy! How could you not tell me!"

Draco and Theo arrived, stepping out of a boat of their own, Neville behind them, holding a hand out to help Hannah avoid the mucky shore. Theo carefully did not look at the gentle moment between the two but loped over to the growing patch of eighth years and eyed Charlie Weasley with amusement. "Please tell me it will be a big wedding," he said. "That would be worth almost anything to attend."

"No," Pansy said. "Ministry office and done, thank you very much."

"You don't mind she's… not well liked?" Padma asked with caution. It was clear she didn't want to offend the rugged man but her neutral tone didn't keep him from getting annoyed by the question.

"You don't think I'm the sort to hold words a person says in fear against them forever, I hope," he said.

"Your mother," Hermione began, because if this year had taught them all anything it was that Mrs. Molly Weasley held a grudge.

"Pansy didn't hurt anyone," Charlie cut her off. "I don't care about one sentence she said over a year ago. If you're her friends, you don't either."

"We are her friends," Hannah interrupted him. "That's why we're worried."

"You needn't be," he said.

"Big wedding," Theo said again. "Can you imagine Posy Parkinson and Molly Weasley trying to plan a wedding together." He let a dreamy look creep over his face. "I'd keep a damn mandrake root in my mouth for a month to get an animagus form just to be able to be a fly on the wall for that conversation."

"You wouldn't be a fly," Hermione said with a narrowing of her eyes. "Knowing you, you'd be something dramatic and rude and there'd be no way for you to hide."

"Can an animal be rude?" Theo asked as if that made the entire prospect of becoming an animagus ever more tempting.

"You'd find one," she said. "Maybe a peacock."

"Wouldn't _Draco_ be a peacock?" Theo asked.

Hermione turned back to look at Pansy. "Ignore him," she suggested. "It's the only way to survive and he just wants to cause trouble. Small weddings are the way to go."

"You're biased because it's what you want," Theo said. "I still think I can talk you into a big to-do. Nott Manor has lovely gardens - "

"No," Hermione said without even turning her head to look at the man. "Stop asking." She threw her arms around Pansy. "I am so happy for you."

"I'm not sure I can forgive you for not telling me," Ginny said, joining in the hug. "I might manage it, however, if you invite me to your wedding."

"Ministry - " Pansy began.

"You can still invite people," Ginny said. "And you will. All of us. And little Andy who follows you around like a puppy waiting for a handout."

"And the girls," Draco said. "If you leave out Sarah and Trista and the lot out they'll cry for days and I can't deal with that."

"Why would you have to deal with it?" Pansy asked him. "It's summer."

"He might have promised to take them all out for ice cream over the summer," Hermione said. "They cried so much that he was leaving you'd think he was Father Christmas and the Sugar Witch rolled into one." Most of them considered Draco's fan club of pre-adolescent girls hilarious. They badgered him, followed him, asked him questions about homework, and now they'd managed to bully him into taking them out over the summer with some well timed group tears. "How he'll manage next year when they're his students I have no idea," Hermione added. That thought made Pansy snicker and even sweet Hannah looked smugly amused.

"It will be fine," Draco muttered but he looked wary as he contemplated having to tell Trista to redo an essay or that, no, she couldn't fly her broom around the castle at 11PM and he'd have to take points if she did it again.

"We could have a small wedding at Nott Manor," Theo said, going back to the subject at hand. "Four flower girls, maybe five, a ring bearer. Mrs. Parkinson and Mrs. Weasley trying not to throttle each other…" He trailed off.

"That might be fun," Pansy admitted, "if my mother couldn't take over."

"Or Mum," Ginny said. "She was awful about Bill and Fleur and she liked Fleur by then."

Charlie looked at Pansy. "What do you say?" he asked. "Let these hooligans plan a wedding and keep our mutually difficult mothers from doing so much as picking out a tablecloth?" He looked at Theo and said, "As long as it's not too much trouble, of course."

"No trouble at all," Theo said, and the lot of them let out a cheer.

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Get ready for Molly Weasley's reaction…_**


	164. Chapter 164 (Molly Weasley Has Opinions)

After the boat ritual they universally decreed to be ridiculous, they all apparated back to the gates and then walked up to the post-ceremony party. Parents were mingling and the elves had set out long tables laden with food and punch. "You ready?" Charlie asked Pansy.

She squinched her eyes shut and took a deep breath and then said, "Sure, what the hell."

The entire Weasley clan had arrived for Ginny's big day and most hovered near their mother. Molly and Arthur each had a glass of punch in their hands as Molly talked to some parent none of them could identify, telling her that, no, she wouldn't be back next year and that, no, McGonagall had not seen fit to inform her who her replacement would be, or even if one had been hired. Bill and Fleur stood the furthest from the matriarch, caught up in a conversation of their own with a family Fleur seemed to know. George stood hunched, his shoulders around his ear and his hands thrust down into pockets, and didn't speak. Percy had stepped away to the side, a plate of starters held in one hand, his eyes scanning the crowd until he saw Ginny walking back up to them from the apparition point, her hand tucked into Harry's. He smiled at them and then made a slight nod toward Charlie, who had his own hard wrapped around Pansy's.

Ron smiled at Ginny and Harry. His eyes skimmed over the rest of the eighth years who were walking with her; he didn't want to have to see the way Draco's arm draped around Hermione's shoulders or the way she leaned into the blond man as she walked. The sight of his brother with Pansy, however, did catch that skimming eye and Ron straightened, his welcoming smile leveling out into a grim line.

"Ginny," Molly Weasley said, her voice warm. "I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks, mum," Ginny said, a grin in her voice.

"When do you and Harry plan to get married," Molly went on. "We can have the wedding at the Burrow and maybe we can borrow the same tiara Fleur wore and - "

"I'm not getting married," Ginny said. Her voice was just as warm as her mother's. She sounded charmed and delighted by the ridiculous misconception that she'd _get married_ at all of seventeen. "Tryouts for the Harpies are next month so I'll be flying with Draco and Harry, assuming either has time, because I need to keep in shape, and - "

"But I thought you were planning on living with Harry at the Black townhouse," Molly protested. "Ron moved out and got a flat with that Dean Thomas you used to date and - "

"Of course I'll be living with Harry," Ginny said. A hint of the steel that had enabled her to survive possession and assault at the hands of Tom Riddle and a year combatting the Carrows crept into her voice. "You didn't think I'd move back home, did you?"

"If you aren't married, you can't live with him," Molly Weasley said.

Ginny snorted. She might not have said, 'Try and stop me' out loud but the words hung in the air anyway. Before Molly could let loose the stream of moral absolutes that were crowding behind her lips, Charlie redirected her.

"You'll have to find yourself robes for my wedding, Mum, and let Ginny's be for now."

Molly turned to him, ready to scold and squeal with equal measure, until she saw the woman at his side. Pansy had her cockiest expression on. Later Draco would tell her she looked like the kneazle who'd eaten not one but an entire cage of canaries. Molly Weasley looked from her son, her second eldest, to the Slytherin at his side and said one word.

"No."

"Yes," Charlie corrected her.

"You cannot marry the woman who threatened to - "

"I can marry whoever I damn well please," he said. He didn't raise his voice. He might have been discussing that the weather was indeed fine today but he agreed that he'd heard it might rain tomorrow for all the agitation in his tone.

"She - "

"Is going to be my wife," Charlie said, still calm and pleasant. "I'm an adult and it's been a long time since I asked you for permission to do things." He let go of Pansy's hand just so he could wrap an arm around her and pull her against him. She seemed to let herself relax at his side and for just a moment looked vulnerable and shaken before she cocked her head to the side and regarded her future mother-in-law with a smirk.

"No," Molly Weasley said again.

"Does that mean we shouldn't send you an invitation to the wedding?" Charlie's words were perfectly courteous, but Ginny wasn't the only Weasley child with steel in their soul.

Molly Weasley opened her mouth and then closed it again. "Molly-wobbles," Arthur began, "I think we should - "

What Arthur thought, however, was interrupted by a screech as Posy Parkinson flew over to the group, an expensive purse clutched in her talons and impractical heels making her lurch and stagger on the uneven ground.

"No," the woman squawked. "Not _him._ Pansy! He's _poor_."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hi all :)_**


	165. Chapter 165 (P Parkinson Has Opinions)

When Posy Parkinson shrieked that Pansy couldn't marry Charlie Weasley because, of all inane reasons, his supposed poverty, Draco almost licked his lips. He knew it wasn't kind, knew it was,in fact, downright awful, but he was looking forward to seeing the dreadful harpy that was Posy Parkinson go after Molly Weasley.

"You could have had Draco Malfoy!" Posy moaned. "Pansy! What are you thinking?!"

"That I don't care for dramatic children who skulk about in black feeling sorry for themselves?" Pansy asked. She glanced over at Draco and added, "No offense."

"I don't care for pushy witches with no filters on their big, fat mouths," he replied. "No offense."

Posy Parkinson looked like she'd been stabbed and Lucius Malfoy, who had limped over from nowhere, looked amused. Molly Weasley opened her mouth but before she could say anything Posy pointed at Theodore. "Or him!" she screeched. "You could have had Nott Manor with just the tiniest amount of effort on your part. I taught you to flirt! I taught you to be coy! Pansy! What happened! All those lessons wasted on a dragon tamer."

Pansy looked at Theodore, then her mother. "Theodore's gay," she pointed out.

"So what?!" Posy Parkinson wailed. "Who cares if he's a flaming homo? He's rich, Pansy. Pop out one heir and then you'd never have had to do your marital duties again. It could have been so perfect."

Hermione leaned over to Draco and whispered in his ear, "I begin to see where Pansy gets her tendency to say whatever comes into her head."

"Just wait," Draco whispered back, sharing a smug look with his father. "It's going to get so much worse."

"But no," Posy said, lowering her voice to a low, angry squawk and stalking toward her daughter and future son-in-law, one taloned finger pointing at the amused looking man. "You had to go for the poor one just because he's cute and straight."

Percy began to cough into his hand and George clapped him on the back. Molly ignored the pair of them as she glowered at Posy Parkinson.

"My son," Molly began, "is a hero. He fought for the Order in the war while your tramp of a daughter tried to give over - "

"Your son is poor," Posy turned on Molly. "I don't care if he's Merlin come again. He can't support my Pansy the way she expects - the way she deserves - to be supported. She is a delicate flower of girlhood and she's been traumatized by war and she can't be expected to make good decisions but I am telling you right now that your son is not good enough for her."

Pansy shrank against Charlie's side at the force of her mother's invective and he leaned down to murmur, "I don't suppose this would be the right time to point out either that I've got a perfectly respectable salary or that, between you and Millie, my plan is for your business to keep me in the style I deserve?"

Draco watched Pansy smile at that soft reassurance and felt something in his gut relax. That his long time friend was marrying a Weasley had been a shock; he was relieved that the Weasley in question bore more resemblance to Ginny than the family matriarch.

"Your daughter's a traitorous tramp," Molly Weasley hissed. "She's taking advantage of my son."

"You shouldn't bring up the word 'traitor', you blood-traitor," Posy retorted. "I'd rather my daughter sully herself with a half-blood than your filthy son."

"I'd rather Charlie go back to seeing... other people," Molly said. "Anything would be better than a Slytherin! And your daughter's the worst of the lot!"

"The worst?" Pansy looked offended at that. She turned to Draco. "Worse than Greg? Worse than _Flint?_ Really?"

"I doubt she's ever met Greg," Draco said.

"Still," Pansy said, narrowing her eyes at Molly Weasley. "What a thing to say to a student, openly admitting your prejudice against an entire House. No wonder you weren't asked back to teach again next year."

Molly ignored her, possibly because Posy Parkinson had turned from Charlie, who was whispering "your mum thinks I'm cute" to Pansy, and was now pointing her finger at Molly.

"You should be grateful, you dumpy cow, that my daughter would give your pathetic family the time of day." Posy tapped Molly right in the center of the knitted flower on her jumper with a long nail. The tiny stone glued to her nail sparkled in the light as she went poke, poke, poke at Molly.

"You should be grateful anyone gives your wretched brat the time of day," Molly snapped, batting Posy's hand away. Her hair almost sparked with her anger and she looked like she might break down and draw her wand, the provocation was so great. "Charlie," she said, turning to her son with desperation and more than a hint of malice in her voice. "Aren't you worried you won't be able to have children with this girl. The Dark Arts can take such a toll." She looked up at Posy with a saccharine smile. "So many of your sort can't have more than one child, can they? And the poor Lestranges - did they ever have even the one?"

Posy narrowed her eyes. "Not everyone breeds like rabbits," she said in what might have been agreement before looking at Charlie. "Pansy, you can't even do a decent engagement portrait for _The Daily Prophet_ because of all those scars."

"My son got those scars fighting for the light," Molly Weasley said, her own eyes becoming little more than slits in her face. "He's a - "

"Actually, Mum," Charlie said, "you might be mixing me up with Bill." He touched a white line that traced over a cheekbone and said, more to the growing crowd than the squabbling mothers, "Got this one because my mates got me drunk and dared me to waltz with a Hungarian Horntail." He leaned his head closer to one gossip hungry woman and added in a stage whisper, "They get irked if you try to lead."

A ripple of laugher ran through the people nearest him.

"This is unacceptable," Molly said.

"Utterly," Posy said. She opened her mouth to go on.

"So," Charlie said, interrupting her, "Am I to assume neither of you want invitations to the wedding."

"Wedding," Molly turned on him. "You can't plan a wedding without our help."

"Absolutely not," Posy agreed.

"I'm afraid we already have," Charlie said. "It's next week, right Theodore?"

Theodore looked momentarily shocked but recovered and said, "Absolutely. You are, of course, both invited. We didn't want to owl the notes out until after today."

"Venue?" Molly demanded.

"Nott Manor," Theodore said.

"Caterer?" Posy snapped.

"I do have house elves," Theodore said. "Bored, pushy house elves. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to have a party to cook for."

"You can borrow Kreacher," Harry offered. "I can't come up with enough work to make him feel useful."

"Thanks," Theodore said. He mouthed 'next _week?'_ at Charlie who grinned at him. Theodore rubbed at his forehead. "Hey," he said as the two mothers began to return to snarling at one another as they were herded away by the shifting crowd. "Who's up for a quick get together at my place. We have some last-minute details to work out."

"Like all of them," Susan muttered.

"Like all of them," Theodore agreed. He looked at Pansy. "I hope this 'how to flirt' girl training at the hands of your mother included a 'how to throw a wedding with no notice' party planning lesson."

"And I hope it took more the rest of it," Draco said. Pansy narrowed her eyes and Draco looked innocent in response.

"We took down a dark lord and endured the Carrows," Hermione said with an airy wave of one hand. "We've got this."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hi!_**


	166. Chapter 166 (Hospitality)

Hermione set the last box of books down in the foyer of Nott Manor with a sigh and rubbed at her lower back as another elf - she couldn't keep them all straight but they seemed happy enough - made excited sounds over the new box to unpack and hurled an oven mitt at her to make her leave. They'd come to a denouement, she and the elves, and she'd slipped them tiny scarves they'd accepted, and they had informed her that they were not leaving and if she thought 'free' meant 'unemployed' she was very much mistaken.

She felt smug that the elves had been perfectly pleased to be freed, even though it was clear that would have no impact on their day to day lives whatsoever. Take _that_ , Hogwart elves, she thought whenever she spied one of the Nott elves wearing her little scarves.

The click of the cane on the floor made her turn and she felt a certain sinking horror when she realized Lucius Malfoy had let himself in the door she'd left open and stood there regarding her with that patrician look that made her feel as if she were a grubby school girl who'd never measure up rather than a war heroine who was engaged to the bloody tosser's son.

"Mr. Malfoy," she said as politely as she could, painfully aware of the dirty Muggle jeans she was wearing and the sweat and dirt on her face. "What a surprise to see you."

He raised an eyebrow she realized he had to pluck - no one's eyebrows were that perfectly shaped - and she had a sudden, almost sacrilegious, image of Lucius Malfoy leaning toward a mirror with a pair of tweezers in his hand. It was all she could do not to giggle at the thought. "You did ask me to bring over Draco's old stuffie," he said. Hermione looked at his hand and there was a stuffed dragon, much the worse for wear, in his grip.

"Thank you," she said.

"It was my pleasure," he said, carefully putting the toy down.

Hermione cast around for something to say and finally remembered Theodore's advice when Lucius Malfoy's first olive branch had arrived. "Could I get you something to drink?" she asked.

"That would be very thoughtful of you," he replied. "I don't suppose you have any lemonade?"

Hermione managed to attract the attention of one of the elves who, despite a dirty look at Lucius Malfoy, agreed to fetch them some lemonade. A different elf appeared and set a tray with a pitcher and two glasses down on a small table with a huff and disappeared. "They don't care for me," he said and she nodded. That was obvious; who would have thought being disliked by house elves would be something she and Lucius Malfoy would have in common. She poured them both glasses and handed one to Lucius and they stood in uncomfortable silence and drank as he accepted her hospitality until he said, "I was going to ask if you and Draco would consider joining me for dinner this evening in Diagon Alley."

Hermione felt something she hadn't realized was there shift off her shoulders. It was similar to the feeling one got when one cut one's hair short and suddenly realized how _heavy_ all that hair had been. "I… that would be nice," she said.

"I was thinking of the new Bulgarian restaurant," he said. "Cafe Sofia. It's a little formal, but - "

"What time?" Hermione asked him. She ran a hand through her hair. "I'm a little… filthy… at the moment."

To his credit, Lucius Malfoy didn't react to her choice of words. "Would eight suit?" he asked.

"We'll meet you there," Hermione said.

After he had left, his cane tap-tapping as he waited until he was a polite distance away to apparate home, she sank down into one of Theodore's endlessly well-placed armchairs and stared at the dragon Lucius Malfoy had left on the small occasional table. Its fur had long been worn away, leaving a grey-green creature covered in the softest of felt with one tiny button eye missing, a black string in its place. She picked it up and pictured Draco sleeping with one arm tucked around the little creature and smiled a little. If only she'd been able to imagine the mean eleven-year-old she'd met as a scared boy who slept with stuffed animal maybe a lot of things would have been different.

"Melly."

She looked up to see Draco standing there.

"Your dragon?" she asked.

He took it from her and ran one thumb over the tiny head. "Yeah," he said.

"You named it Melly?" Hermione asked.

He gave her the cocky grin that never failed to bring a smile to her lips. "It's a perfectly good name," he said.

"Dinner at eight," she said. "Cafe Sofia."

Draco nodded. "I heard," he said. "Welcome to the Malfoy spotlight."

She shrugged and then gave him a grin of her own. "Welcome to the Hermione Granger spotlight."

He laughed. "Probably a brighter one these days," he admitted before he tugged on her hand. "You're covered in dust. Let's go take a shower and make you presentable."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - And so one Malfoy parent comes around._**

 ** _I have to share this two-shot. It's James/Severus, which she somehow makes work. Desperate, by Mrs Authoress Malfoy: www DOT fanfiction DOT net /s/11703041/1/Desperate_**


	167. Chapter 167 (Dinner with Lucius)

Cafe Sofia sat between a bookstore and a high end men's store. Hermione hesitated outside the clothing shop, looking at the robes in the window with feigned interest until Draco said, "How long do you plan to stall?"

She huffed at him and he took her hand and squeezed it. "It will be fine," he said. "Even if he hated you, he'd be courteous."

She sighed at that but let him lead her into the restaurant where Draco checked with the maître d' before heading back to a table in a back corner. Lucius sat alone; Narcissa was nowhere to be found.

Lucius saw them and struggled to rise, and before she could think Hermione blurted out, "Please don't stand."

Lucius grimaced and murmured about how not standing for a lady was unacceptable and he hoped that she'd consider it done.

"It's bad today?" Draco asked as he held a chair out for Hermione.

Lucius didn't respond at first. He simply said, "I took the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine; may I pour you a glass?" When Hermione gave him a stern look Draco recognized all too well, the older man smiled a little and admitted, "Yes, today is bad."

All nerves about the dinner forgotten, Hermione began quizzing Lucius on his ailments, to the point that she pulled out a notebook and began writing down symptoms. "For Padma," she said in an aside to Draco before explaining to the older Malfoy that they had a friend who was starting her medical program at St. Mungo's who had some innovative ideas about mixing Muggle and magical treatments for some maladies. "I assume you wouldn't be averse to Muggle treatments," she said, the words an obvious challenge.

Lucius Malfoy regarded her as a tired sigh escaped his mouth. "Miss Granger," he said at last, "I have been in constant pain since I left Azkaban. Some days are better than others. Some days are good enough it's almost like being normal. I don't even hope to be pain free any longer; I just hope for days where it's better than average. If your friend has some kind of Muggle remedy that could do only that, I would fund her entire education. I would set her up with a research lab to pursue her interests."

"Assuming she'd take Malfoy money," Draco muttered.

"Padma would," Hermione said, looking shocked. "Draco, she's not like that."

Before Draco could respond that he knew he was being unfair but sometimes the new anti-Malfoy bias was exhausting, the waiter came by and gave them a spiel on the day's specials and asked if they had any questions about the menu. Hermione asked what he recommended.

"Shopska salad to start," he said, "and then the musaka is excellent."

"Done," Hermione said and the waiter smiled at her.

"He wants to ask if you're really her," Lucius said after the man took all their orders and walked away. "He wants to ask for an autograph."

Hermione made a face. "I hate that," she said. "All the war hero stuff, people deciding they know things about me because of an article they read. It's awful."

Lucius regarded her with some curiosity. "And so, hating attention, you decided to date my son?"

Hermione stiffened and Draco closed his eyes, dreading the potential explosion. Hermione kept her voice completely without inflection as she said, "While I don't particularly care for being called a death eater's whore, no, I happen to love Draco very much, and I think I can - "

Lucius Malfoy held up a hand to cut off her flow of outrage. "People call you death eater's whore?" He turned to Draco with a silent question on his face.

"I have a list," Draco said. The words were quiet but while Lucius' gesture had only stopped Hermione long enough for him to get a word in, Draco's response stilled her entirely.

"A list?" she repeated.

Draco looked up and said, "Oh, the salads are here," and ignored the narrow-eyed look from his fiancée that suggested they would talk more about this 'list' later as well as the approving nod from his father. The rest of dinner they stayed carefully away from potentially explosive topics, discussing instead Pansy's upcoming wedding - the Malfoy's had been invited and were looking forward to it - and Draco and Hermione's plans for the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum. Lucius invited them to make free use of the library at the Manor and Hermione thanked him. By the time the pumpkin and walnut pastries arrived the three of them had come to an unexpected accord that made Draco sag with relief as he walked Hermione to a polite apparation point. His father wasn't being ridiculous about blood status and Hermione was apparently willing to overlook his past attitude, even if only because she felt sorry for his current suffering.

"That was better than I'd hoped for," he said.

"List?" was all she said in reply.

He was about to defend himself and explain that he really couldn't let people attack her for being with him, that there were many bad things about being a Malfoy but one of the good ones was loyalty to family and he'd thought she _liked_ that, but he couldn't get a word out before she hugged him and pressed her lips to his cheek and whispered in his ear, "I do love you, Draco Malfoy."

So he supposed that was better than he'd hoped for too.


	168. Chapter 168

"So," Theodore said. "We've got the magical quill writing out invitations and Padma's attaching them to the veritable army of owls we've employed, Hermione and Pansy are at Parrods getting robes - "

"Harrods," Padma said from where she was petting an owl and telling him he was indeed a very good boy but she needed him to take yet another missive for her.

"What?" Theo said.

"Harrods. The Muggle department store they went to is called Harrods, with an 'H'."

Theodore waved his hand. He didn't care what the name of the store was, only that Hermione had promised Pansy would return, probably significantly poorer, but in possession of robes that dazzled. Posy Parkinson, faced with inevitability, had handed her daughter the key to a Parkinson vault and ordered her to ensure that at least her attire wouldn't bring shame to her family and heritage. Pansy had then turned to Hermione and demanded to know what was the most expensive way to get Muggle wedding robes because that was what she was going to do.

Spite was a powerful motivator.

Hannah came into the room, looking frazzled. She'd been sent out to plan a wedding menu with the elves and they'd head her arguing with them at some length. The final outcome appeared to be: Elves 1, Hannah 0. "I have been told there will be food," Hannah said. "There will be food and a bar and I have been told not to worry my pretty little head about it." She rubbed her face and glowered at Theodore. "Your elves are not very deferential," she said.

Theodore muttered, "Hermione freed them all when I wasn't looking."

"And they let her?" Neville asked. At Draco's look he stammered, "I mean, the Hogwarts elves wanted nothing to do with - "

"Apparently the Nott elves feel that she is an honorary member of the family, or something, and thus her wishes are paramount," Theodore said. "Therefore, if she wishes them to claim to be free, they will do so. However, they refuse to leave Nott Manor and have become bossier than they were before, which is saying something."

"How many are there?" Draco asked. "We only had the one."

"Seven," Theodore said. He summoned a mock glare. "Your fiancée has saddled me with seven supposedly free elves who think having a bunch of people living here is the best thing ever because that gives them more people to take care of, meaning order about."

"But there will be food?" Padma confirmed.

"Food. Cake. A bar. A selection of non-alcoholic beverages for 'young Master Nott'," Hannah said. "And they don't want to hear suggestions or ideas or… they threw a towel at me!"

Draco smothered his laugh with a cough and she folded her arms and glared at him which only made him laugh harder.

"Moving on," Theodore said. "Do we have a photographer?"

Susan nodded. "Booked and paid for. She was a bit put out about the short notice until I told her it was a pureblood wedding at an ancestral estate." She herself seemed put out that that had been a factor and Theodore gave her a sympathetic look. He knew it wasn't fair - given what his father had done it was beyond unfair - but some people were still impressed by wizarding's traditional aristocracy. Susan shrugged. "I might have also mentioned Harry Potter would be here."

Draco groaned.

"What?" Theodore said. "And he sent you such a nice thank you note for the plates too."

"I do speak sarcasm," Draco muttered, "and that note was nothing but sarcasm."

"Pity you two both like girls," Theodore said. "If it weren't for that teensy detail you'd be perfect for each other. Both dramatic, sarcastic arseholes."

"Ha ha ha," Draco muttered. Susan and Hannah both burst out laughing and Padma was overtaken by a coughing fit.

"Music?" Draco asked. "Ministry official?"

"Hermione's somehow blackmailed Kingsley Shacklebolt into presiding," Theodore said. "I didn't ask for details. And Neville here found a string quartet or something." He managed to say Neville's name without a single quaver in his voice and with only a small one in his heart. Things would be better now, he thought, with school over and only seeing Neville once in a while rather than every day at every meal. He'd get through planning this event with him and seeing the man dance with Hannah and then spend his summer at Nott Manor with Susan and Draco and Hermione.

"So we're all set?" Padma asked, shooing another round of owls out to delivery.

"I think we are," Susan admitted. "I even found a hair stylist to come here the morning of so we can all relax and just let this woman make us up."

"That'll piss the elves off," Theodore warned.

"Good," Hannah muttered. "Towel-throwers."


	169. Chapter 169

Pansy pushed open the door of Nott Manor, a giant garment bag in one hand, and flounced across the room. "Theodore," she yelled, the words echoing in the foyer. "Where are you?"

The theoretical master of the house appeared from the stairway as an elf snatched Pansy's bag and looked around for more. "On the stoop," she told it, and, with a squeak, it apparated away. She eyed her host and he regarded her back with an amused expression.

"Wedding's not until tomorrow, Pans," Theodore said. "I know you're excited and all, but it's not like you to bugger up dates like this. Getting cold feet? Need me to hide you from a crowd of avenging Weasleys, all waving pitchforks and demanding you pay for sullying their brother's honor?"

"Ha ha," she said. "My mother has decided that I needed to spent the night before the wedding alone lest my purity be tainted."

Theodore snorted. If that wasn't the most ridiculous idea he'd ever heard he didn't know what was. Sometimes these older purebloods seemed to be living in the dark ages with their antiquated notions. "Haven't you and Charlie been living together in some hut in Romania all week?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure whatever purity you might have had left, you've lost no time in shucking."

"Hardly a hut," she said. "It's a dear little cottage, thank you, and I love it." Theodore raised his eyebrows and she added, "Yes, my favorite snob, it's a wee bit smaller than your ancient monolith but I like it and I have no intentions of discussing my sex life with you." She threw herself down into a chair and stretched out legs that rather conspicuously ended in practical, flat boots with what might have been mud clinging to their soles instead of high heels. "So, to the point, can I stay here tonight? I told my mother if I stayed with you it would be easier to start getting ready in the morning and she took one look at my nails, almost shrieked in horror, and declared I needed all the time I could get." Pansy looked at one of the nails in question; they had been cut short and here was not a hint of polish to be seen.

"Of course you're welcome," Theodore said. "You're welcome any time, you know that. But doesn't your mother know I'm far more likely to facilitate your bad girl ways than to keep you locked up in some kind of 'let's talk about how to source game birds' isolation like that poor Greengrass kid?"

"Hey, she knows more about wine than I do," Pansy said right as Charlie, who'd been outside losing an argument with the elves, came in. "Don't discount that little thing. She'll end up running some kind of import business that'll make even the Malfoys look poor."

"Your facilitation is something we're counting on," Charlie admitted with a bit of a smirk as he looked around the entry way. "Nice floors."

Theodore laughed as he looked down at the wood floors that had been laid out in an intricate pattern of light and dark boards. "Well," he said, "if it's facilitation to sin you want, you have it."

"By the way, your elf threw a towel at me," Charlie said. "Is she okay?"

"Hermione freed them," Theodore muttered. "She's fine, just opinionated."

Pansy began to laugh. "Hermione did _what_?" she asked. "I thought elves hated her whole 'free the oppressed' campaign. The ones at Hogwarts won't even acknowledge her existence."

Theodore sighed. "Apparently the Nott elves always regarded us as idiots who can't even manage to keep our own homes in order. All being 'free' has done is make them more comfortable sharing those opinions. And throwing things."

"I noticed that," Charlie said. "About the throwing, I mean. She had good aim too."

"She's probably unpacking your bags, repairing any holes in your trousers, throwing out pants that she thinks are too worn, and polishing your shoes as we stand around," Theodore said with a sigh. "At least they used to pretend to ask."

"I take it your dad didn't treat them the way Lucius Malfoy treated his?" Pansy said from where she sat. "That Malfoy elf that used to follow Potter around didn't waste any time in getting away as soon as he could."

Theodore gave her a nasty look. "Obviously," was all he said.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - The wedding approaches :) Pansy's wedding dress, Hermione's dress, and the junior bridesmaid dresses are all on Pinterest._**


	170. Chapter 170 (The Wedding: 1 of 4)

Molly Weasley showed up when the sun had barely peeked over the horizon. She'd come to 'help' she said. No man could possibly throw a wedding by himself, she said. She pushed her sleeves up and demanded to be shown the kitchen.

Theodore, who hadn't had enough coffee yet to face this and who found a Molly Weasley in her domestic element even more irritating than a Molly Weasley in the classroom, hid his smirk as he showed her to the elves' domain. He hadn't been allowed in in years and they were technically bonded to him, or had been. He didn't think she'd fare any better.

She didn't.

She came back out with a dish towel in her hands and suppressed rage in her eyes. "What did you do to those elves?" she demanded. "Even Kreacher does what I ask, but they just - "

"Freed them," Theodore said as blandly as he could. "I assume that you prefer not to benefit from the labour of the oppressed?"

The glare she gave him would have sent most of the oppressed scurrying toward holes to escape her attention. Theo just smiled back at her. He'd graduated and the knowledge his best friends had taken this woman's job filled him with malicious pleasure. He wondered when the harpy would find out. Oh, to see her reaction.

"I'll go look in on the preparations outside, then," the harpy in question said.

"If you want," Theodore said, taking another sip of his coffee. "But Harry sent Kreacher over. Apparently because he's always lived in that townhouse he's never had a real garden to look after and he's unlikely to appreciate interference in what seems to be his new true love. He hasn't stopped singing to himself in two days and the flowers have never looked so good,but, by all means, go interrupt him." He took another sip. "Of course, he has clipping shears and trowels, not dishcloths, but…"

Before Molly Weasley could decide whether she wanted to risk descending on Kreacher and his new garden shears, the door opened again and Theodore cursed himself for having lowered the wards so early. With the musicians arriving who knew when, and the photographer already upstairs taking who knew what kind of shots of Pansy in the bath, it would have been a hassle to raise and lower them all morning and guests would start trickling in around two anyway so it had seemed like a good idea.

He hadn't anticipated Molly Weasley's domineering insistence that she had to be helpful.

He also hadn't anticipated that Posy Parkinson would even be awake this early in the day. The terrifying woman stood, allowing herself to be framed dramatically by the wide doors, and said, "Where is my baby? I have only hours left to try to talk her out of the biggest mistake of her life."

Molly turned to let her eyes rake over the other woman as Theodore took a sip from his coffee and leaned against the wall. This had the potential to be fabulous. An elf popped in at his side and he bent down to make a request and the little creature nodded and, with a glare at Molly, disappeared again.

"You look like a tramp," Molly said as she catalogued Posy Parkinson's high heels, teased hair, and bulky necklace. "That skirt is too short for daytime; have you come here on the way home from some assignation?"

Posy pointed a long, manicured nail at Molly. "We aren't all dumpy housewives with no income," she said. " _You_ are the future I am trying to save my baby girl from. She doesn't need to spend her time scrubbing some man's pants."

"And you are what I am trying to save my son from," Molly countered. "He doesn't need some high-maintenance hussy to drain every last knut he makes on nail care and ridiculous shoes!"

"I like shoes." Both women turned and glared in unison as Charlie Weasley loped into the room. "Morning, Mum," he said. "You're early. Ceremony isn't until three and we aren't expecting people until two."

"I came over to help," Molly said stiffly.

"Sweet of you," he said, and kissed her on the cheek, his long hair brushing down over his cheekbones and tickling his mother's nose so she had to choke back a sneeze. "But I think Theodore's elves have everything under control." He looked over at the coffee in the aforementioned Theodore's hands. "Do you have any more of that? I've been kicked out. Apparently there are plans to photograph every stage of getting ready and one of your elves threw a hair brush at me and told me to, and I quote, 'skedaddle'."

Theodore laughed as an elf appeared with a tray, a carafe, and three cups. "I think coffee has arrived," he said. The two women didn't stop glaring at one another as Posy snatched four sugar cubes before Molly could take them and Molly scowled at Posy's perfume and muttered things about how could anyone be expected to taste the coffee with so much scent in the air.

Charlie took a sip from his cup and gave Theodore a tired smile.

"I understand Romania is beautiful this time of year," Theodore said.

"It is," Charlie agreed. He glanced at his mother. "Peaceful."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning to the loveliest readers in fandom!_**


	171. Chapter 171 (The Wedding: 2 of 4)

Draco's little ducklings arrived at Nott Manor at one and were chased upstairs to be dressed and combed into what an elf considered presentable. Pansy had found five matching dresses in the shopping trip designed to drain her father's vaults as much as possible and this meant the four girls who had been sorted into Slytherin that year, as well as little Sari from Gryffindor, had been "invited" to be junior bridesmaids.

It was a rare Slytherin parent who would turn down the opportunity to showcase her child in what had almost instantly become touted as the society wedding of the year. Sari's mother owled Hermione to make sure there would be kosher food available and then, after expressing gratitude that Hermione had helped her daughter get food she could feel safe eating and permission to practice her faith at school, said Sari would be delighted to participate.

"They brought their puffs?" Theodore asked Draco as the little girls ran up the stairs with giggles and squeals, pink and purple chirping pets held in their arms.

"Apparently," Draco said. His smile at the antics of the little ones turned into a flinch as Molly Weasley returned. Charlie had politely and firmly told her everything was moving along without her help and she could go home and get dressed and then come back when the rest of the guests did. Posy had muttered something about how no amount of time could make Molly Weasley look presentable, and Molly had retorted with more comments about the length of Posy's skirt and did she plan to cover her arse for the ceremony, but both women had left and the morning had been more peaceful for it.

"It's a bit like an inferi," Theodore murmured. "No matter how many times you think you've gotten rid of it, it keeps coming back."

Draco choked back a laugh as Theodore turned on his manners and asked Molly if she'd like to go do a quick stroll about the back gardens and see if anything required last minute tweaking. The laugh stopped when Molly asked, her voice all sweetness, whether Theodore's father would be able to attend.

Theodore dropped the arm he'd held out to escort the woman to the back and said, "No."

"Well," Molly said, "that's too bad."

Theodore summoned an elf and asked, his voice rigorously polite, if the little creature would be so kind as to show Mrs. Weasley the gardens. "She's a bit early," he said. "Guests weren't supposed to arrive until two."

The elf led Mrs. Weasley off, the expression on its dour face making clear its opinion of people who arrived too early.

"That woman is such a bitch," Draco said. "I hope Pansy knows what she is doing, marrying into that. I can't imagine what would make dealing with that harpy worth it."

Theodore nodded his agreement but said nothing and the pair of them settled into a silence that was at last broken by Charlie coming down the stairs; even in formal dress robes the man gave off the air of someone who probably had a knife tucked away within easy reach. "I have yet again been evicted," he said. "Have any of the rest of my family shown up yet?"

"Your mother is in the back garden," Theodore said.

Charlie sighed. "I love her," he said, the words laced with an apology. "I know she can be… narrow."

"That's a way of putting it, yes," Draco said.

"I was wondering more about the rest of them," he said. "Bill and Fleur should be here, and Ginny, and Percy, and George." He hesitated. "I'm not sure if Ron is going to make it."

Draco wasn't sure whether to be relieved the git wouldn't be there causing a scene with his harpy of a mother or sorry for Charlie, whose brother couldn't overcome his miserable self for this happy occasion. "I hope he makes an appearance," he said at last.

Hermione interrupted them by slipping down the stairs. Draco smiled at her. Dressed in a green dress so stiff with embroidery he was surprised she could move she looked beautiful and ridiculous at the same time. She saw his smile and sighed. "I know," she said. "It's just… it's over the top but Pansy saw it and I think she wants it for herself but she couldn't quite justify buying the wedding dress _and_ this dress… I half expect it to disappear when she goes to Romania."

Draco ran his fingers over the fabric and then wrapped an arm around the woman. "You look beautiful," he said.

"You look like a forest floor that a gardener has been at," Theodore corrected him. "All perfect mossy green and flowery. I hope Kreacher doesn't try to prune you."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, lovely people. Thank you, as always, for spending your time with my little story. Hermione's green dress is on Pinterest and I'm on tumblr and you are fabulous._**


	172. Chapter 172 (The Wedding: 3 of 4)

The ceremony was perfect. The mothers behaved, Kingsley kept his urge to pontificate in check, the flower girls elicited coos from the guests, and not a single Pygmy Puff pooped inappropriately. Pansy looked beautiful, as well she should have given what she'd paid for the gown. Charlie looked rather like the cat who'd eaten not just one canary but several and the actual cat in residence, Crookshanks, kept quiet until Pansy and Charlie kissed. When he felt the kiss had gone on too long, he yowled and Pansy broke away from her groom, looked at the cat, and said, "Who asked you?"

Everybody laughed.

The cake was gorgeous, with a white dragon that wrapped around it and seemed to smirk at the guests, the music was flawless, the photographer unobtrusive.

Ron Weasley arrived for the ceremony, congratulated his brother, kissed the bride in the air above her cheek, and slipped away. Millicent Bulstrode watched him go with a sniff but no comment. She wasn't a fan of her best friend's in-laws. That the couple had settled in Romania struck her as the only solution if you'd been so stupid as to fall for a man who had those people as his family. It had initially put a bit of a crink in the kneazle-breeding plans but Narcissa Malfoy had helped them find loopholes in Romania's tax structure that made it a much more hospitable place to set up a small business and so Millie had purchased a cottage of her own, near enough to Pansy to floo over but far enough away from the dragon preserve neither the smell nor the sounds of the dragons reached her.

As the reception got underway, Lucius Malfoy handed his cane to his son and danced with Hermione, who took care to move slowly and gently as he squired her about the dance floor. Narcissa Malfoy disappeared to freshen her makeup and didn't acknowledge Hermione's presence or her dance with the Malfoy patriarch, but managed to avoid any situation where she might have to actively snub her son's fiancée.

Draco decided it was progress.

After his father handed Hermione back to him, recovering his cane and retreating to a chair where Padma settled next to him, a glass of some of the fruited water Theodore had insisted the bar served in her hand, Draco led her to the dance floor himself. "It's a lovely wedding," he said.

"Not bad for one week of planning," Hermione agreed. "Close to perfect even. I think Pansy's almost giddy with happiness."

Draco glanced over at his long time friend who was laughing with joy as her ginger-haired husband spun her in a circle. She appeared to be happier than he could remember seeing her. "She is, I think," he said. "I'm glad we talked her into doing this and not just eloping."

"Even _with_ the mother problem," Hermione said. Draco peered over at Molly Weasley. She was watching her son with her mouth set in a tight line. Posy Parkinson, once the deed was done, had resigned herself with remarkable grace because Charlie might be the dreaded 'poor' but he was also a war hero and it was a society wedding and Pansy had gotten a manicure.

"She'd be a nightmare as a mother-in-law," Draco muttered, not even sure which of the two women he meant. His eyes caught on his own mother, standing near a flower arrangement and talking to the mum of one of the little Slytherin girls, and cringed. Narcissa was just as bad, and possibly worse, and he could see Hermione's smile faltering as she thought of her own mother, lost to her forever. Draco tightened his hold on her. "She'd be proud of you," he murmured, his lips at her ear. "I didn't know her, only saw her that one time in Diagon Alley, but I remember how she looked at you like you were the most amazing thing in a world of magic. She'd be so proud that you helped your friend, that you were loyal and faithful and true." He took a deep breath and said, "And I'm sure she'd be proud you're going to be the best teacher that school has ever seen."

Hermione looked up at her and her eyes had the too bright shine of a person holding back tears. "She would have liked you," she whispered. "The person you are now." She let out a tiny, sad laugh and added, "Plus, of course, you have good teeth."

Draco cast around for something else to say. He settled on, "Is this what you'd want? A wedding like this?"

She shuddered. "No," she said. "You and me and Theodore and our friends and that's it. No photographer, no receiving line, no society wedding." He nodded. "And nothing at all for a while." Draco was startled at that but she said, sounding almost nervous, "We can wait, right? It's okay to have a long engagement, right?"

"Of course it is," he said, a little confused. "Just - "

"I just don't think I'm ready to be married," she said in a rush, the words falling over one another. "We're so young and there was the war and we're about to start a new job and there's your mother and Theodore's father and - "

"You do still want to be with me," Draco said, suddenly nervous.

"Of course," Hermione said, sounding so offended he relaxed at once. "I just want to be with you… engaged. Not married. Engaged."

"I thought that's what we were planning," Draco said, now very confused.

"It was," Hermione said, "But… you were talking about this wedding, and how it was nice, and I was worried that you - "

"Just as long as I have you," he said, "I don't care what papers are filed at the Ministry or whether we have a party. All I want is you."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Love to you all._**


	173. Chapter 173 (The Wedding: 4 of 4)

Pansy and Charlie's wedding reception was in full swing when Susan touched Theo on the arm and asked in a quiet voice, "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'm fine, Sue," he said. "You don't need to hover over me like a mother hen."

Theodore had taken his glass and moved to the edge of the celebration as it spilled out of the ballroom, over the edge of the stone veranda, and down the hill toward the small river that wound through the Nott property. He was half in shadow, able to look in and see the couples dancing and look out to the park with the fairy lights strung between the trees and tables laden with desserts. It was a picture perfect wedding, down to little girls running between guests with Pygmy Puffs sitting on their shoulders, chirping along to the shrieking.

"Liar," Susan said, her tone fond.

"That too," Theodore agreed with a sad smile. "But you know I'll be fine tomorrow when being single isn't quite so pathetic."

Susan rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss him on the temple before walking back into the fray of the reception, handing her glass to a passing house elf and grabbing Padma's hand to pull her onto the dance floor. Percy Weasley, his trousers as perfectly pressed as they always were, came and joined Theodore at the edge of the veranda. He followed the direction of Theodore's gaze and saw Hannah and Neville on the dance floor.

"An ex?" Percy asked politely.

"I guess you could call it that, and "Theodore said, turning his attention to the precise man at his side and masking the echoes of misery in his eyes with a much more controlled expression. "I doubt he would."

"You were his experiment," Percy said with a nod. "I have one of those in my past. I suspect everybody does." He took a sip from the cocktail in his hand and then added, "I wonder sometimes whether mine is really happy with his wife or whether at some point he will tell her an unpleasant truth." He took another sip. "It stings like hell, doesn't it?"

"I didn't realize – " Theo began.

"I did tell you that Hermione wasn't my type," Percy said, keeping his eyes locked on Theodore's. "What did you think that I meant?"

"That she's a pushy, swotty, sneak?" Theodore suggested with a bit of a laugh. "That she's not exactly the quintessential Gryffindor?"

"I'm not exactly the quintessential Gryffindor myself," Percy observed. "Or so my family is often perfectly happy to tell me. Too ambitious. Not reckless enough. Not daring enough."

"Having dated - or something - the perfect Gryffindor," Theodore said, his eyes returning to Neville, "I think that sometimes their daring is a bit overrated. They're good in a crisis, I'll give them that." He very carefully did not meet the other man's eyes as he added, "If you are an ambitious person, I am probably the last person you should look at as a potential date. Death Eater's son and all that?"

Theodore watched Neville but his mind stayed with the polite man at his side who continued to sip from his drink. Percy Weasley wasn't built like his brother, the dragon tamer groom. He was slighter, with a fuller mouth and longer limbs and reminded Theodore of a photo spread he'd once admired of a Muggle swimmer.

He'd admired that spread at some length.

Percy, watching him watch Neville, said, "I'd like to think that, as practical as I might be, I would not stoop to choosing a partner based on what they could do for my career. However, if I were to do such a thing, you would not be the worst choice."

Theodore made a rude sound. "I think you might have had a bit too much of the champagne," he observed. "Not that I blame you." He eyed the sparkling water in his own glass. "I understand it's an excellent vintage."

Percy shook his head. "Wealthy pureblood?" he asked. "Hosting a society wedding in his gardens? Very close friends with notable war heroine Hermione Granger? I think your standing is higher then you believe."

"Death Eater's son and a drunkard," Theo countered even as he noted that Percy smelled faintly of soap and something he couldn't quite identify. He tried to breathe in without being too obvious about it and thought that it might be cloves, or maybe coriander? Whatever it was, it wasn't that obnoxious jasmine thing Pansy tended to overuse, thank Merlin.

Percy shrugged again. "If you're not interested," he said, "just let me know."

Theodore turned his full gaze onto the man standing next to him. The setting sun highlighted the angles of Percy's face and brought the creases of his trousers into sharp relief and Theodore was reminded once again of the lean musculature of a swimmer. "I didn't say that," Theodore said. "Let's not be hasty." He took a deep breath.

Cloves.

Or maybe coriander?

"Care to dance?" Theodore asked.

 **~ end of part 1 ~**

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - There are a tremendous number of people to thank for this one before I move on to Part 2.**

 **Shayalonnie has alpha read every single chapter, sometimes multiple chapters a day, and sent me notes that sometimes border on being longer than actual chapter.**

 **ReadingSerpent beta read all the chapters about Hinduism and Padma and did her level best to keep me from being offensive.**

 **thelemonandthepolarbear beta read the chapters about Chanukah and kept me from going too far astray**

 **OrlandoSwitch beta read and provided amazing critical feedback about Theodore and how to keep my portrayal of his experience authentic.**

 **As is always the case, any way in which I have failed is my fault.**

 **And, finally, ALL OF YOU. As I write this note, this story has become one of the most reviewed Harry Potter fanfics and that is because of how wonderful and verbose you all are. Thank you.**


	174. Chapter 174 (tumblr drabble: the howler)

**A/N - Before I move on to posting part 2 I am, as promised, including the two "bonus chapters" that were only on tumblr. This one is set after Ron's visit to Hermione in August goes horribly wrong.**

* * *

Ginny eyed her brother with annoyance. She'd told him not to go bother Hermione. Harry had told him not to go bother Hermione. Even George had called him a bloody idiot. He'd been convinced, however, that Hermione hadn't really meant it when she'd said it was over, that she was sorry but the war had been too much. I need to be alone, she'd said. I need to feel like no one has expectations. So, like a stubborn fool Ron had gone up to Hogwarts to see her, an engagement ring in his pocket, and had predictably come home rejected and angry.

She hadn't been receptive to his suit. Worse, as Ginny had had to hear about in endless, tedious detail, she'd been all over Malfoy. Malfoy! Ron had been offended almost on principle. To be told your girlfriend needed time and space was one thing; for her to use that time and space to shack up with a childhood rival was another.

Ginny had finally told him Malfoy sounded like the perfect idea to her. "He's gorgeous," she'd said to her fuming brother, "and I bet if she tells him to leave her alone for a bit, he listens."

Ron had stormed off and come back looking smugly mean. It was the same expression he'd gotten as a child when he broke her favorite dragon figurine because she'd made fun of his flying. He'd been sorry almost immediately afterward but the dragon hadn't been fixable. When Ginny had seen that expression she'd wondered what he'd done. She'd known it would be something bad.

The article hinting Malfoy had used an Imperius Curse on Hermione had come out in the Prophet the next day.

"You're a moron," Ginny had said to him. "I guess you didn't want to even be friends?"

"That's not… you can't do that," Harry had said, reading the article with fury. "You can't do that to Hermione!"

"She's shagging Malfoy," Ron had said, filled with bubbling, surly resentment that only boiled harder at the way his sister and best friend didn't jump to his defense.

"Who cares?" Harry had demanded.

"Did you know?"

"She hasn't discussed her sex life with me - thank fucking Merlin," Harry had snapped, "but I knew they were both up there, knew she was… It's not my fucking business who she dates. Or yours. Or Rita-fucking-Skeeters!" He'd shaken his head. "You need to apologize, mate. That was out of line. Beyond out of line."

This morning, the day after the Prophet article had come out, Ron was glowering at the paper. When Ginny glanced over his shoulder she saw the tiny retraction of the previous day's story.

"That didn't take long," she commented.

"When you have Malfoy's money," Ron muttered.

"Or when you're right," Ginny countered.

Molly Weasley put plates in front of both Ginny and Ron. "If she'd prefer a Death Eater to you, you're better off without her," the woman said to Ron. "Her actions certainly reveal her character."

Ginny gritted her teeth but didn't say anything.

That was when the owl arrived. The eagle owl, unmistakeable Malfoy's bird, flew in the open window and dropped the red envelope on the table before, with a clack of his beak, he took off. Ron's glower deepened and Molly sniffed. "You might as well open it," Ginny said.

"That bitch," Ron muttered but he pried open the envelope.

"Ronald Weasley how dare you!" Hermione's voice hissed out of the paper with unmistakeable rage. "You have a lot of nerve you pompous, arrogant, outrageous arse! We are done. We were done. And I'll date whomever I want and I can guarantee that is not now, and never will be, you! To suggest I am cursed, to slander my name and drag Draco's through the mud, because your pride was hurt is beyond despicable. You should be ashamed! I am ashamed for you!" The letter drew a deep breath. "I hope you realize how cruel and awful and -" it sounded like Hermione was holding back tears, "- and mean that was. I guess I was right to know not to trust you. I feel so stupid I ever did."

The letter burst into flames and disappeared. Ron looked momentarily guilt stricken until Molly said, her voice filled with disapproval, "Such unnecessary dramatics. What a little diva. I hope she doesn't plan to bring that attitude to her classes this fall because no one's likely to tolerate that kind of nonsense, war heroine or not."

Ginny stood up. "I'll be out flying," she said.

"Be sure to wear a jumper," Molly said.


	175. Chapter 175 (tumblr drabble: proposal)

**A/N - Before I move on to posting part 2 I am, as promised, including the two "bonus chapters" that were only on tumblr. This one is set during the Christmas holiday.**

* * *

"You got away," Pansy said.

Charlie laughed and tossed his homemade mittens, one sporting a 'C' and the other a 'W' down on the table. The tea shop in Muggle London was filled with people escaping the Boxing Day crush to have a quick spot of tea and maybe a scone before heading back out into the fray. "Told you I would," he said. He looked around at the unfamiliar environment. "You okay?" he asked.

Pansy shrugged, the gesture only partially hiding her nervousness at being surrounded by so many people, all of whom she'd been told her whole life were both dangerous and primitive. "Hermione showed me how the money works," she said, "and I still have plenty left over from our trip to shop for dresses for the Ball at school."

Charlie took her hand. "Wish I could have seen that," he said. "Bet you were a vision."

Pansy smiled at him and, at the sight of how wan that smile was Charlie tightened his grip on her fingers. "You wouldn't have liked it," she said. "Bunch of kids running around..." she trailed off. "I'm too young for you," she muttered.

Charlie shook his head, the paused the conversation to order a pot of tea and two scones. When the waitress, her sore feet momentarily forgotten at the sight of the man seated at table three with some forgettable miss, asked what kind of scones he shrugged and deferred to her suggestion of what was good.

Once the simpering Muggle waitress had left, promising the curry and cream scones were 'magical', Charlie reached over and tucked a lock of Pansy's brown hair behind one of her ears. "You are perfect," he corrected her. "Tiny slip of a thing with sharp claws and enough backbone for a woman twice your size."

"Everyone hates me." Pansy hated how forlorn the words sounded and her fingers itched to grab a vial of Draught of Peace from her bag. "Your mother really hates me."

Charlie ran one thumb over her cheek, tracing the line of her bone structure, and said, "Fortunately for me, I am unswayed by her - or anyone's - opinion. Otherwise, I'd have stayed in Britain and married some dull little clone of my mother and gotten a dull little job at the Ministry." He gave her a steady look. "I much prefer you, Pansy Parkinson."

The waitress slipped plates with scones more dry than magical in front of them and Pansy began crumbling hers into dust. She was about to apologize for being needy and emotional and clingy because if she'd learned one thing from her mother it was that no one cared for that, when she looked up and saw the box in his hands. At her open-mouthed gape he smirked and she lifted the tiny box from his palm. "Charlie," she said in wonder, "Is this...?"

"Open it," he ordered and, though her fingers were shaking so much she fumbled three times before getting the lid up, she did.

A large black opal, flickering with internal blues and greens and surrounded by diamonds, stared back at her. "Charlie," she began, stopping when he plucked the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger.

"This is when you say yes," he prompted her. She didn't respond at first, she was so mesmerized by the glittering ring. "You can run your business from up near the dragon reserve. We'll just wait until you graduate, stop by the Ministry to do the paperwork and tell our families. That way we won't have to listen to months of their grousing," he added.

"This ring," Pansy stammered.

"Not an heirloom," Charlie said. "New, for us. For you." He hesitated. "Assuming you want me."

Pansy wiped something that might have been a tear away from one eye with the back of the hand she wasn't still staring at. "Yes," she said. Then, looking back up at him, she added with more of her usual self-possession, "Hell yes, and to hell with all of them."

Charlie's eyes crinkled as he watched her, but then he poked at his scone and said, "I don't think even magic could save this."

Pansy snickered. "Shall I pay and we'll go?" she asked him. "Celebrate in private maybe?" At his nod she tossed down enough of the worthless Muggle money to buy their treats five times over - she still wasn't completely sure how the paper money worked and thought it best to err on the side of too much rather than too little - and the pair of them slipped out into the crowded streets, Charlie somehow wrapping himself around the brunette at his side as if to shield her from the throngs.

"So romantic," an elderly lady at the next table said to her equally elderly companion.

"Did you see his arms?" her friend asked. "I'm not sure what kids today mean with their funny slang - dragons? - but whatever gets a man arms like that is fine by me."


	176. Chapter 176 (The Start of Part 2)

**~ Part 2 ~**

 **three months later**

"These books are - "

"Vile?" Draco asked. His father had taken to offering Hermione texts from the Malfoy library. Multiple generations of arrogant and informed collecting had gathered some of the most authoritative Dark Arts books into one place.

"Fascinating," Hermione said. "I mean, yes, much of what they delineate how to do is vile, but the magic is amazing." She set the one she'd been reading down and smacked it when it made a growling sound. "None of that, you," she said.

She turned to give Draco her full attention and he smiled at her. Dressed in oversized pajamas with a cup of coffee at her elbow, she looked more like a lazy student than a woman researching forbidden magic. The morning sun hit her hair and he suspected the August day would be clear and hot. "If the Ministry comes to call, you'll want to hide those," he said. "I'm fairly sure most of them are on a banned books list somewhere."

"Oh, the Ministry," Hermione said with more than a little contempt. "You mean the people who told us over and over again that Voldemort was absolutely, positively not back?"

Draco smothered a laugh. "Yes," he said. "Those would be the ones." What was left unsaid was it was also the same Ministry who continued to stonewall every request to release sick prisoners from Azkaban to St. Mungo's for appropriate medical treatment.

Hermione made a face and plucked another book off her pile. Squinting so he could make out the title he read _Common Household Spells_ and moved closer so he could read it over her shoulder. The text delineated a way to get rid of five kinds of magical pests with one charm. "Not what I'd think you'd be interested in," he commented.

"It's wandless," she said. He leaned in and read it again and let out a low whistle. He hadn't noticed but she was right; there wasn't a mention of wands on the entire page.

"Why is this page shimmering?" he asked as the words started to give him a headache.

"Translation spell," she said, sounding pleased with herself. She murmured a finite and the letters on page stopped trying to dance and settled themselves down into -

"That's not French," Draco said.

"Romanian," Hermione said. "One of your little ducklings' mums gave it to me."

Draco laughed. His four little Slytherin first years, along with Sari from Gryffindor, had been at Nott Manor so often over the summer that Theodore had begun to make noises about were they running a summer school because if so they should start collecting fees. Once Andy had realized he could fly at Nott Manor and that the resident adults didn't respect the ban on underage magic, at least as far as it involved brooms, he'd almost moved in. The place had been loud, chaotic, and joyous for the whole of the summer holiday but he was still surprised Hermione had taken being given a book on housework with any degree of grace. If Molly Weasley had tried to pass one along he suspected she'd have hurled it back into the woman's face. "I don't suppose it would be too forward of me to ask _why_ she gave it to you."

Hermione put an innocent look on her face. "She just wants me to be the best little wifey for you that I can," she said.

Draco snorted.

"Okay," Hermione relented, "she heard me talking about wandless household magic with Sari's mum - she knows all sorts of little things like potato peeling that don't require wands - and she said she had an old book of her mum's on magic that she never used but that I was welcome to look over." She set the book down and stood up. "It's fascinating stuff," she said. "Hogwarts teaches magic as if there were a set way to do it, and from a pedagogical perspective it makes a certain amount of sense to break things down into an easily digestible paradigm, but - "

Draco pulled the witch into her harms and stopped her mouth with a kiss. Hermione had taken to lesson planning with the same type of ferocious preparation she brought to everything else. He was quite sure that by this point she could not only teach a class on Defense Against the Dark Arts but on current research into teaching methodology. He was more than a little tired of discussions on the matter.

"If you think you can distract me," she managed to get out before he slid a hand down to rest on her arse. At that point she must have decided she didn't mind being torn away from books on Dark Magic and how to get rid of the common household pests of Romania because she stopped complaining and let him drag her back into the manor and up the stairs to their suite so he could have his wicked way with her.

"Use protection," Theodore yelled as they passed. "There's already enough damn kids running around this place. We don't need one who isn't toilet trained too."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Welcome to Part 2. If Part 1 was my stab at an eighth year fic, this is my attempt at Hogwarts Professors._**


	177. Chapter 177

Blaise watched the girl leave. He couldn't even remember her name. Rosa? Isabella? Giulia? It didn't matter; they were all the same: long legs, long hair, high heels, a lot of eye makeup and not a thought in their heads they'd admit to having. He rubbed his face as if he could get the feel of her off his mouth before he loped across the room to his shower to wash away the floral scent she'd left clinging to his skin. They always wore the floral scents; he wondered, sometimes, of there were some factory turning out identical girls and sending them forth in identical designer fashions. His forehead throbbed in a way that he might have appreciated in other parts of his anatomy an hour earlier; he'd gotten used to thinking of pornography instead of whatever beauty he'd picked up to help blur another night away and he felt nothing even as he called them precious bits of heaven and tried not to choke on their perfume.

"You're an idiot," he muttered to himself as he let the water pound down on him. "Callow, that's what you are. A callow idiot."

He should have gone to Pansy's wedding; at least that would have been a break in his interminable routine. He'd gotten the invitation with its predictable thick, cream linen cardstock and its predictable silver embossed lettering and its wholly unpredictable choice of groom.

He'd been amused it read 'Pansy and Charles invite you to their nuptials'. Apparently they'd opted to bypass any pretense their parents approved. Blaise had never met either Arthur or Molly Weasley; the Weasleys weren't in the circle he'd run in when he had been in Britain. Posy Parkinson, however, he'd been happy to avoid. He was sure all of them were united only in their mutual fury that Pansy, pureblood heiress and bona fide bitch, had married Charlie, blood traitor and animal wrangler.

Still, even if it would have meant smiling politely at Pansy's vulgar mother, he should have gone. Instead he'd sent an expensive and lovely trinket and Pansy had sent back a thank you note that was formulaic and polite except for the postscript reading, 'Where were you, anyway, you arsehole?'

He laughed now as he stepped out of the shower and toweled off, Graciela or Dona or Stella's perfume mercifully washed away. He still had Pansy's invitation propped against his mirror. Theodore had handwritten 'Come any time you want to visit' on the back. That offer felt like an avenue of escape from a life that had grown less and less bearable with each day.

"Blaise."

His mother's voice floated up the stairs and he cringed as his head began to hurt even more. Elora Zabini had learned to enchant her words so they carried to the far reaches of every room while still sounding breathy and beguiling.

"Blaise, come to dinner, darling."

He contemplated going downstairs as naked as he was, still dripping, but his mother wouldn't bat one of her enchanted long eyelashes at that and he didn't care to see how his newest stepfather would react. Violence? Lust? Whatever it was, it would probably make him feel as dirty as every other contact with the man did. He hoped this one had even more money than most and developed an unfortunately fatal illness faster than they usually did.

He began pulling on clothes and yelled back, "I'll be there as soon as I'm dressed, mamma."

That must have satisfied her because she didn't call up again. He let his eyes catch on the wedding invitation and made the impulsive decision to go back to Britain. It was cold and rainy and filled with people who assumed his school House affiliation was destiny for a lifetime, but it was far enough away from his mother and her newest resource that he would learn to embrace the overcast skies and endless drizzle.

Besides, if Pansy was marrying a Weasley, things had changed. "I am adaptable," Blaise murmured as he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. "I can change to embrace the modern love of blood traitors and half bloods and even Draco's frizzy-haired Muggle as long as it gets me the hell out of this house."

"Blaise," his mother called again. "We're waiting for you."

"Coming," he yelled down and touched a finger to the invitation where it sat. "I'll owl you, Theodore," Blaise murmured. "Make sure you mean it, but if you do I'll be on your doorstep before the owl returns."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, loveliest readers._**


	178. Chapter 178

Susan dumped the pile of folders on the table in the room Theodore had set aside as her office and rubbed her head. Another day spent filing papers and proofreading tedious Wizengamot briefs; that setting Muggle phones to explode upon dialing certain numbers had been ruled an illegal use of magic had taken thirty-four pages of precedent to determine and Susan had wanted to scream when she'd hit page thirty-two and had had to waste hours looking up Norse runes because one of the honored members of wizarding Britain's legislative body had decided to cite Icelandic law from the time of the bloody founders and had apparently thought it would be cute to cite untranslated.

It hadn't been cute.

Susan was fairly sure that proto-Norse was responsible for her headache.

At least they had determined that making Muggle phones explode was a bad idea and had even come up with a reasonable penalty as a result; perpetrators would have to pay a small fine and clean up any mess resulting from their shenanigans. Sometimes the Wizengamot writings meandered for pages and pages and only determined that more study was needed. More study rarely came with funding which meant that the reports and rulings and briefs were sent to the department of mysteries to be filed and forever ignored.

Susan had begun to feel a certain amount of unexpected sympathy for Voldemort. Not for his goals, certainly - blood purity was repugnant and only a fool wanted to live forever - or his means - because terrorism was never the right choice - but his frustration with the Ministry? That she sympathized with. She'd yet to have a single day pass when the thought of how simple it would be to just cast an Imperius Curse and get these blithering idiots to just all go where she wanted them to and do what she wanted them to.

She wanted them to only cite case law in English. _English_.

She wanted them to embrace the value of the succinct paragraph.

She wanted them to let Theodore's father out of Azkaban.

So many goals and she couldn't even manage the first. Working in government could suck all the life out of you. It had been three months and she was already afraid that one day she'd look up and realize she'd spent her whole life fighting to eliminate footnotes of footnotes and accomplished nothing. It was depressing and she'd come home and dump her work on the desk and try not to cry. As usual, the elves had left a tray on her desk with a plate of biscuits, a cup of tea that never got cold, and a pain potion; she'd grown to appreciate the subtle care-taking of the Nott elves and she drank the latter down in one swallow before picking up the tea and sipping at it.

"Susan."

She looked up and Theodore smiled at her from the door.

"You're later than usual," he observed.

"Blame Iceland," she said.

"Do I want to know?" he asked. When she shook her head he crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. "You don't have to do this," he whispered. "They're never going to let him out. Don't keep beating yourself against this wall on my account."

She just sighed. She was going to fix this, however long it took and however many miserable, rotten, smug arses she had to kiss to get into a position of enough power to do more than translate runes. Theodore sighed back and then let her go. "How do I look?" he asked.

She studied him. Nervous. He looked nervous. "Great," she said. "Percy finally back?"

She could kick Draco. His plan to use the Malfoy influence to benefit the members of the network he was building was all typically Slytherin and she appreciated he had stopped wallowing and found a project, but his project had resulted in Percy getting an assignment that had sent him to South America to work as a liason with a local government. The work had been exhausting and all consuming and while he and Theo had kept in touch they hadn't seen one another since shortly after the Pansy and Charlie's wedding.

"He got in last night," Theodore said. "Spent most of the day asleep."

"Well, have fun," she said. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

That brought a grin to Theodore's face. "And what would that be, exactly?"

You're such an arse," Susan said, grinning back.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hi!_**


	179. Chapter 179

"How was South America?"

Theodore and Percy had met in a small Spanish restaurant that was technically in Muggle London but run by, and often frequented by, wizards. It was a place where no one would look twice at two men dining together but also a place where everyone pretended that was because they were having a business meeting. Despite the sophisticated decor and hushed voices of waiters listing off the day's specials, it reminded Theodore rather unpleasantly of his single foray into the Muggle bar scene. That had not ended well.

"It was hot," Percy said, "and there was a larger variety of insect life than I cared to know about."

"Sounds great," Theodore said. He'd been trying not to stare since they'd met by the host's stand. Percy was as pale as ever, his hair still the same shocking ginger, his limbs still had the same lean appeal. He still made Theodore's mouth go dry and his palms sweat but three months of rigorously formal letters had left him wondering if he'd read too much into a single dance at a wedding. Maybe he was wrong to think this man might be attracted to him or that this was more than a cordial friendship between purebloods of the same generation.

Though, Percy seemed to be doing a certain amount of discreet cataloguing of his own as if he were also making sure that Theodore looked the same and their chemistry remained.

Percy gave a little shrug at Theodore's words and moved the slightly too tall floral arrangement out of the center of the table so they could see one another more easily. "It was a good trip. I think we've set up the foundations for the development of extradition treaties between our mutual governing bodies so Dark wizards can't move from one nation to another and simply start recruiting again."

Theodore nodded and Percy nodded as they both kept the conversation safely about work. I missed you, Theodore wanted to say, and I like your mouth. Instead he just said, "It sounds like an interesting project."

"It was a bit of a surprise assignment," Percy said. "I would have expected it to go to someone with more seniority in my department."

"Oh," Theodore said, "Well, that's Draco for you. Pulling strings is what the Malfoys do."

Percy held still for a moment before he asked, "This isn't because of you, is it?"

Theodore considered for the first time that if one hadn't been privy to Draco's plan to, well, acquire, for lack of a better word, the Weasley across the table that it looked _exactly_ like Draco had done a favor for his friend's potential romantic interest. He kept his eyes on Percy's as he said, as steadily as he could, "No. Merlin, no. Even Draco's not that ham-handed. He starting talking about adding you to the Malfoy influence network after you came to Hogwarts last Christmas to check up on Ginny."

Percy relaxed but only slightly. "I've been the recipient of patronage before. It didn't end well." Theodore realized how little he knew about Percy Weasley because he wasn't sure what the man was referring to. Over sparkling water Percy filled him in; he'd been recruited by the Ministry not for his talents but to keep on eye on his family and Harry Potter during the lead up to the last war. "I thought it was for my... I'd been Head Boy, you understand, and had excellent marks, so I assumed I'd been hired and gotten plum assignments based on that." Bitterness leeched into his tone. "I hadn't been."

It had gone badly, he said. His family had thrown his success in his face and told him it had nothing to do with his work or his talents, only them, and that he was a fool. He'd been angry and hurt. "Nothing I'd ever done had been quite right, you understand. They seemed to think I had ambitions above my station, or that's what it felt like at the time. And then, of course, they were right and it had all been a sham." He tightened his jaw. "After all that, I might be a little wary of - "

"It won't be quid pro quo," Theodore said, interrupting him. "Not like that. That's not the way the Malfoys work."

"Or the Notts?" Percy asked.

"I'm afraid my father was all in with the Dark Lord," Theodore said. "No influence left to broker, unless washed up blood purists complaining about how much better life was back in the day are who you want to sway."

Percy was tricked into a laugh at that and Theodore watched the way the man's eye's crinkled and his mouth turned up into a lopsided smile that was oddly out of place in his otherwise precise and controlled mien.

"Do you want me to tell Draco to back off?" Theodore asked.

Percy seemed to consider the idea but at last he shook his head just as the tiny toasts with anchovy and tomato spread arrived. "I suppose I'll have to reconcile my ambition with the reality that success in our system requires someone like one of the Malfoys sponsoring you," he said. "I just don't like it."

Theodore nodded as he looked at the some-assembly-required starters.

"What about you?" Percy asked. He prepared one of the miniature toasts and handed it across the table to Theodore. Their fingers brushed as Theodore took it. He looked at Percy and Percy looked back and Theodore relaxed as Percy's smile quirked up. "Now that your extra year of school is done, what do you plan to do?"

"I don't know," Theodore admitted, his eyes and mind too focused on the way Percy licked a bit of tomato off his finger to pay complete attention to his words. "It's been putting one foot in front of the other and just getting through the day for so long, first with the rise of the Dark Lor… Voldemort, and then with the utter horror that was the Carrows, and then just not drinking, I haven't looked up and considered anything other than survival in a long time."

"Maybe you should," Percy said.

Theodore took a deep breath and tried for a moment to pretend he was a ridiculously brazen as Hermione. "I can't really offer you a drink back at my place after dinner, but - "

"I'm very British," Percy said. "I like tea."

"Tea I have," Theodore said. Nerves made him repeat himself. "I have tea. We can have tea."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Many MANY thanks to OrlandoSwitch, who beta read not one, not two, but three separate versions of this chapter._**


	180. Chapter 180

When Theodore opened the door of Nott Manor he noticed his housemates had all made themselves scarce and he spared a quick moment to offer thanks to Salazar and Helga and all the founders that tact still existed. Even the elves had disappeared to wherever they went when they weren't expressing opinions and setting trays of snacks in front of the charges with opinionated thumps. "You've been here before," he said to Percy. "Still the same as it was at your brother's wedding."

Percy waited until the door had shut behind them before he had his hands on each side of Theodore's face and that beautiful mouth on his. He tasted of the rich flan they'd had and the bitter espresso and Theodore let out a groan as his fear that whatever chemistry they'd had had been only in his head dissipated. Unless Percy's body was lying, the man was as interested as he was.

"I'm a mess," he warned Percy between kisses.

"My family's difficult," the man countered, before asking, "Do you have a room of your own? I'd rather not have one of your - "

"Up the stairs and to the right," Theodore said. They made it to his suite with clothes still on and Percy looked at the space with a quirk to his brow that made Theodore cringe. He'd stripped out any vestige of childhood memories in a fit of drunken rage at his father one night and while the elves had cleaned up the mess, he'd never replaced the toys and photographs of himself playing piano with any other kind of personalization. The space might as well have been a guest room.

"It's pretty bland," Theodore said, trying to excuse the room.

"It's big," Percy said. He walked to the window that looked out over one of the formal gardens and sat down in the alcove seat where Theodore had spent his childhood dreaming and a painful summer trying to drink himself into dreamless sleep. "I managed to forget how wealthy you are over the summer and this... it's not exactly what my flat is like." He pried off one shoe. "I might gape a bit like I've just come in from the country."

Theodore closed his eyes for a moment. Draco, of course, didn't even notice that Nott Manor was, well, an ancestral estate with gardens and elves and more rooms than any reasonable person could use. He wasn't quite sure what Hermione's economic status had been in the Muggle world, but she hadn't seemed fazed by the scale of the place other than to make obnoxious comments that it would just take her and Draco that much longer to christen every room and Sue, well, she spent all her time in the warren that was the Ministry buried in paperwork. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know it's not fair."

When he opened his eyes Percy was regarding him rather seriously, the raw lust of their kisses in the foyer set aside for a brief moment. "It's not a problem, Theodore," he said. "It's just different."

"You're hardly provincial," Theodore said, unsure what was the right answer.

"Not for lack of effort on my parents' parts," Percy muttered. He shook his head as if to clear out that depressing thought and then said, "Do you plan to leave your shoes on?"

Theodore looked down at his laced dress shoes and laughed. "I guess not," he said. "That would be a bit vulgar, I suppose." He pushed one off and grinned at the man in his window seat. "Though I thought we were having tea."

"I lied," Percy said. "I don't want tea."

"I love your mouth," Theodore said. "I've had detailed fantasies about your mouth since we danced."

"Only my mouth?" Percy asked as he fumbled with the button on his trousers, pulled them down along with his pants and tossed them to the side.

Theodore wasn't watching that mouth with it's crooked smile. Instead his eyes were on Percy Weasley's cock and while a part of his mind made the less than brilliant observation that the man really was a ginger, most of his brain had effectively stopped functioning as he dropped to his knees at the window seat and, with his hands on the man's thighs, began acting out another fantasy he'd had over the summer.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Again, I cannot thank Orlando Switch enough. A good beta reader is a treasure to cherish._**


	181. Chapter 181

Blaise dropped his bag to the floor of the foyer of Nott Manor with a loud thump and a crash that sounded as if something inside it had been fragile and was now in multiple pieces. Theodore had expected his sometimes friend, had been waiting for his arrival, and yet he still flinched at the anger behind that small, furious gesture. Not that Blaise couldn't _reparo_ anything his heart desired - he'd always been a talented wizard - but still. Blaise was pissed as hell about something.

"You made it," Theodore said with no inflection in his voice.

Blaise nodded. "Portkey from Italy, apparated from the Ministry." He kicked at the bag. "I hate travel. Hate it. Do you have anything to drink around here?"

"So many fruit juices," Theodore said. "Some even sparkle. And water and - "

"Fucking great," Blaise said. "I get in after a day of being jerked around by one old boot after another, and arguing with some Ministry idiot about whether I really had the appropriate paperwork for international travel." He took a deep breath. "Can I stay?"

Theodore looked at him. Blaise didn't say anything until Theodore coughed and then he sighed. "She's gotten married again," he said. "My mother."

"It's bad?" Theodore asked.

Blaise glared at him, then, without responding, stalked through the foyer, through the house, and into the back room with its large windows that looked out onto the large lawn that stretched behind Nott Manor. Susan had been reading a book and she looked up when the handsome man threw himself into a chair, then glanced at Theodore who'd followed Blaise on his furious march through the manor. Theodore just shrugged at her. He had no real idea what was going on. Blaise had been going to come for the weekend; the original owl hadn't had any mention of his mother or staying indefinitely. There was room, of course, but he wouldn't have expected the man to want to live in a house with Susan. With _Hermione_.

Blaise was a bit arrogant and a more than a bit proud of his pureblood heritage.

"It's bad," Blaise said. "The worst."

"A Muggle?" Theodore asked, assuming that would be what Blaise considered the worst possible choice for his mother's newest husband. "What is this, number nine?"

"Eight," Blaise said. "And he's not a Muggle." Blaise snorted at that idea. "Who cares about _Muggles_ anymore? Muggles, Muggle-borns, half-bloods everywhere. None of it matters any more, or so I'm told. It's a new world, all shiny and shite."

"Not a Muggle, then?" Theodore confirmed, ignoring the complicated description of the post-war world.

"A sympathizer." The words were bleak, but then Blaise repeated them with a raging fury that looked like it might consume him. "He's a fucking _sympathizer_ , Theo."

"With _Voldemort?"_ Susan asked in horror.

"Right?" Blaise looked at her. "Can you _imagine_? He wants to talk to me about what it was like to be at Hogwarts when 'such a great man' was reshaping things. He thinks I must be sad that the farking bastard lost. He thinks the whole movement was brilliant." He took a deep breath. "I think he plans to write a biography. 'Voldemort: Our Missed Opportunity'. I think he might wank off to photos of the man he found in the P _rophet._ "

Theodore looked at Susan. Her mouth was literally open in shock. "Your… your mother _married_ him?" she asked.

"He's rich. Welcome to my life," Blaise said. He looked back at Theodore. "So, can I stay?"

"Yes," Theodore said. "Of course."

Blaise sagged into the chair. "Thank you," he said. "You're a lifesaver." He let his head loll back and closed his eyes. "You know, I know you think I'm an arse, and you may be right, but I wasn't all rah-rah about Voldemort. I stayed out of the way of the Carrows and kept the shelf in the common room stocked with healing potions. And now this utter cretin thinks I want to reminisce about that hell. Such good times, watching people tortured right and left. Oh yes, let's talk about how great that was over espresso." He seemed to struggle to get control of himself. "Besides, taking in strays seems to be your thing these days. Never thought I'd see that."

"Never thought you'd be a stray," Theodore countered.

"I've always been a stray," Blaise said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - SO MUCH LOVE for Mrs. Authoress Malfoy who wrote a story about Percy and Theodore called Percy's Anniversary. www DOT fanfiction DOT net /s/11742503/1/Percy-s-Anniversary_**


	182. Chapter 182

Draco had his face buried in Hermione's hair when he heard the footsteps. The pair of them had come out to the veranda that overlooked Theodore's sloping back park and Draco had wrapped his arms around Hermione so they could sit and relax on one of the last days before school began and with it responsibility and work.

The footsteps ended Draco's relaxation and he tensed though he didn't pull his arms away from the woman; if anything he held on more tightly. You learned to listen when you lived with Death Eaters and psychotics. You learned to know people by the sounds they made when they moved down a corridor so you could slip out of the room and escape before they entered.

He knew the sounds of Theodore's footsteps. Theodore loped along like a cat, always seemingly confident, always ready to dart away. Susan walked as though she were afraid to take up space. Even when she was angry she hesitated so her feet whispered along the floor. This person walked with controlled rage, each step a little too heavy, each tap of a dress shoe a little too deliberate.

"Zabini."

He turned just his head and saw the man, immaculately dressed as always. Blaise Zabini stood in the doorway of the manor, his slanting eyes guarded. All he said was, "Malfoy."

The two men stared at one another. They'd been friends through school, or some facsimile of such. Draco had resented Blaise had been invited to join social groups he himself had been excluded from once the Death Eaters had returned in force. Blaise had subtly pulled himself away from Draco once he'd had a Mark burned into his arm. "You're a fool," was the only comment the dark-skinned man ever made on the subject.

Draco had bristled at that assessment at the time. It wasn't as if Blaise had ever any love for Muggles or Muggle-borns; a more elitist, vainer boy would have been hard to find and in most quarters Draco would have taken that prize easily.

Blaise coughed and then said, "You're looking well, Granger."

She let him squirm under her gaze for a long moment before she said, "Thank you. When did you get here?"

"Just now," he said. "I left Theodore and that Susan Bones in the back room." He waved a hand toward the room and Draco turned. The light from the sun made the windows sheets of white and he couldn't see either Theodore or Susan. "I saw you out here and thought I should come out and say hullo."

"Did Theodore not offer you anything?" Hermione asked. She made a move as if to get up and Draco tightened his hold on her even more, making her mutter something under her breath he pretended not to hear.

"How long do you plan to stay?" Draco asked.

"Indefinitely."

The two men continued to take one another's measure at that simple, one word answer. "Here?" Draco asked at last. "With Susan and Hermione? The _Muggle-born_ Hermione?"

"Here," Blaise confirmed. "And if you can overcome your prejudices, which you most obviously have, is it such a stretch to think - "

"Yes," Draco said. "Yes, it is."

"Draco," Hermione said, the words almost a hiss.

"You didn't hear him in the dorm," Draco said.

"I didn't hear _you_ ," she said, "and I'm sure you had things to say. I'm sure you never shut up."

"Mostly about Potter," Blaise said. "We had a bet going for a while that he had a thing for the Chosen One." He let a tiny smile onto his face. "Fuck. I lost five galleons on that."

"Why does everyone think Harry Potter and I would be such a perfect match?" Draco asked, still exasperated at the idea. "We hated each other."

"You hated Granger here, and now you're not letting her go for fear I might pounce on her and stab her with my wand," Blaise said, the words dry. "People change."

Hermione had been pushing at Draco's arm through their whole exchange and he finally let her go and she stood up. She hadn't even gotten through the motion of brushing imaginary lint off her trousers before an elf appeared, looked at Blaise, huffed in some wordless condemnation o the incompetent humans who hadn't offered the newcomer refreshments and disappeared again.

"I take it I don't get to put in a request?" Blaise asked in carefully suppressed amusement.

"You don't," Hermione agreed. She held out her hand. "Welcome to Nott Manor."

Blaise didn't appear to hesitate before he took it. "Thanks for letting me stay."


	183. Chapter 183

"Susan," Blaise said. She looked up at the man and frowned. He looked uncomfortable, as if he weren't sure whether he was welcome to join them at the breakfast table. Hermione had her head down behind _The Daily Prophet_ as usual, and Draco and Theodore were barely awake, sipping coffee as if it might convince them their choice to get out of bed hadn't been wholly foolish.

You didn't stay in bed on Saturday because the elves had decided it was necessary to make a full breakfast that day and they had opinions about people who didn't get up and eat their food. "This is your fault," Draco said to Hermione, as he did every week.

"What is it, Blaise?" Susan asked, ignoring the Draco and Hermione byplay.

"An elf," he said, sounding nervous. "She told me I had to get up."

"Has she sorted your clothes yet?" Theodore asked.

"Just sit," Susan suggested. "The food _is_ good."

"I liked that dress," Hermione muttered. "And those trousers."

"Your fault," Draco said again.

The elves had taken it upon themselves to sort through everyone's wardrobes. Worn things had been tossed, as well as items the elves had apparently decided were simply not appropriate. They had opinions, and while Theodore, Susan, and Draco had escaped the great closet purge mostly unscathed, Hermione had not. When she'd complained, an elf had just patted her on the hand and told her they all understood she'd been raised badly and it wasn't her fault but they'd help her so she didn't bring shame to the ancient and important House of Nott.

Her complaint that she wasn't a _member_ of the House of Nott, she just lived there, fell on large ears that had become conveniently deaf.

"Sorted my clothes?" Blaise asked, pulling out a chair and spooning eggs from a platter onto his plate. "Fuck. No? Do they do that?"

"They do," Susan said. She glanced at what Blaise was wearing and smiled. His trousers were perfect, his shirt pressed and crisp, and she was willing to guess his pants had not a hole or stain to be found.

She knew in irritating detail how many young men had unattractive pants. These same young men had sometimes had the nerve to comment if she wasn't wearing a brassiere that matched her knickers.

"You might be spared," she said as she admired Blaise's outfit. He might have been an elitist prick for all their years in school, but the man knew how to put clothes together. "They mostly just get rid of things that are worn out or ugly."

"That dress wasn't ugly," Hermione muttered, still not looking up from her paper.

"It was," Theodore said. "You have no taste."

Blaise swallowed an obvious laugh. When Draco gave him a nasty look, Blaise said, "Oh, please. You said the same thing often enough." He stabbed a tomato with his fork and, after moving it to his plate and beginning to cut it into smaller and smaller pieces with his knife, he added, "Thank you again for letting me stay."

They ate in silence after that, immersed in coffee, news, and nerves until Crookshanks strolled into the dining room with Clem the Pygmy Puff clinging to his shoulders.

"What the hell is that?" Blaise demanded as the half-kneazle yowled and Hermione passed down a strip of bacon without looking.

"It's Hermione's cat," Theodore said. "Isn't he beautiful?"

"No," Blaise said, "but I recognized that menace. I meant the purple thing? Does the cat have some kind of awful growth?"

Clem chirped an objection to the description of her as a 'growth'.

"That's Draco's pet Pygmy Puff," Theodore said.

Blaise looked at Draco in astonishment. "What are you? Twelve?" he asked.

Draco glowered but didn't respond until Hermione folded up the paper and with a few muttered imprecations about the continued worthlessness of the Ministry - present company excepted - held her hand out to Draco and said, "Let's go have sex."

Theodore dropped his fork and the clattering sound as it hit the floor was loud in the suddenly quiet room as everyone except Draco gaped at her. Draco looked smug. "Who are you," Theodore demanded, "And what have you done with Hermione Granger?"

"If the rest of you get to make me uncomfortable by complaining about my clothes and my cat I get to make you uncomfortable," she said.

* * *

 _ **A/N - Thank you so much, likeyouwannabebeloved! She made a Theo/Neville drabble!**_ ** _www DOT fanfiction DOT net /s/11743711/1/Fickle-Th_ ings**


	184. Chapter 184

"Let's have sex?" Draco grinned at Hermione as the door to their suite closed behind them. "Are you _trying_ to terrorize everyone?"

Not that he would mind if she were. Getting out of dorms where they had to sneak past the tolerant eyes of school administrators to even sleep in the same room had been the best thing about leaving Hogwarts, as much as they both loved the place. Draco adored waking up next to her. She might grouch at him and take longer showers than he'd thought was possible and her hair might be trying to strangle him during the nigh,t but all of that paled next to the having her there all the time.

"Maybe," she said, a gleam in her eye. It was easy to forget that under that ridiculously organized exterior and behind the woman who had magically indexed her Defense notes so they could be accessed by topic, year of instruction, or keyword, was the girl who had set fire to a teacher at the age of twelve, decided it was perfectly reasonable to steal supplies and brew a complicated potion in the toilet, and misused a time-turner to rescue a hippogriff. Hermione was mature and brilliant and hardworking all while being as reckless as all the other Gryffindors. "Assuming you're up for the challenge."

Draco was already pulling his shoes off. "Are you kidding?" he asked her, filling his voice with faux offense. "Is this a challenge? An affront to my manhood?"

Hermione leaned up against the wall and smirked at him. "I think it is," she said.

"Oh," he said, delighted with this. "You are in so much trouble."

She quirked her eyebrows up and crossed her arms and he bit down on his lip as he grinned. It took him almost no time to pull her shoes off, unhook the clasp on her trousers, and shimmy them down over her hips. She helped only the littlest amount, picking her feet up so he could toss the clothes that had passed muster with the elves away, and run a finger along the black satin she still wore. "I like this," he said. He did too. He wasn't sure when her wardrobe had expanded to include bits of lace and silk and satin but he'd grown to love looking at her in her study, practical jumpers and Muggle trousers and know that under that she had on something frivolous just for them.

"You aren't going to take them off?" she asked.

Draco grinned up at her from where he knelt at her feet. "Only when you ask really nicely," he said.

"Oh, it's a game you want, is it?" she asked.

He didn't answer, just pressed his cheek against her thigh and ran a finger back and forth across the fabric until the spreading dampness told him he had her full attention and the sounds she made had become less amused and more quiet whimpers. It had been a good summer for learning one another, and the awkward fumbles of stolen moments in shared rooms while Theodore pretended to care about the view from the common room had given way to much more practiced delight in one another. He slipped a finger under the fabric and brushed it against her and she made a noise that no one would describe as quiet. He repeated the motion, and then again, and let his warm breath and the promise of what _could_ happen as soon as there wasn't fabric between his mouth and her body tantalize the woman who was now bracing her body against the wall to keep from sliding down.

He ran his tongue along her thigh, right to the edge of her knickers and stopped.

"You are such a - "

"Careful," Draco said.

"Wonderful human being," she corrected herself. He glanced up and the smile on her face as she mouthed the word 'prat' at him would have made his heart melt if he hadn't handed it to her for safekeeping months and months ago.

"Ready to ask nicely?" He bent his head down again and teased her with his mouth and breath not quite where she wanted them even as he began to move the fingers inside her knickers in a circular pattern he knew was guaranteed to bring her to the edge. "I could do so many lovely things to you just as soon as you - "

"Draco, please," she said, her arms uncrossed so she could hook her thumbs around the edge of her knickers and start to pull them down.

"Well," he said, "since you said please it would be rude to refuse you."

"And Malfoys are never rude," she said as he helped her get the knickers off and she kicked them across the room.

"Never," he agreed as he pressed his mouth against her and did what she had, after all, asked for.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, lovely reviewers, for pushing this to an insane 19K reviews._**


	185. Chapter 185 (Visiting Grimmauld Place)

"I don't see why we have to go," Draco whinged. He did, of course. He'd brought this on himself with his oh-so-clever gift of dessert plates with the blasted man's face on them. It had been worth it at first. Ginny had laughed so hard tears had come out her eyes and Potter's obvious lack of enthusiasm for his role as the kind of celebrity that got put on plates had made the present perfect. Perfect! He didn't think he'd ever be able to top it.

That the artist hadn't come close to capturing Potter's usual sass and had instead made the man look like he hadn't had a bowel movement for days had given the commemorative plates that extra something special. Unfortunately, now he had to go and have dessert with the man as a direct result of his clever idea.

Draco wondered if he had time to make Potter Sucks buttons again. Maybe he could change the wording to imply cunnilingus. Hermione wouldn't _actually_ kill him for that, right? He glanced over at her. She'd shrugged into one of the cardigans that had escaped the elves depredations, though he honestly wasn't sure how, and was looking at him as if she had already had it with him.

Definitely not the right time to ask about button verbiage.

"It's to celebrate Ginny's official signing with the Holyhead Harpies," Hermione said. "Stop thinking everything is about you and just put on your shoes so we can go."

Theodore smirked as Draco stomped his way out the door. "Have fun with your brother," he called out.

"Brother?" Blaise asked in obvious confusion. "What the fuck?"

"He and Harry Potter have a special relationship now," Theodore was saying as the door shut and Draco was spared any more of the man's gloating amusement at his expense.

"It won't be that bad, right?" Draco muttered. "It's not like the press will be there and we'll have to pretend to be all chummy."

Ginny met them at the door of Grimmauld Place with a hug. Kreacher had long ago transformed the grim and mouldering townhouse into an inviting space and, while Walburga Black's portrait still hung in the entry hall, courtesy of its permanent sticking charm, Ginny had added a second permanent sticking charm to the drapes covering the foul woman and she had been silenced.

"Where's Harry," Hermione asked, looking around. The hall was filled with plants. There were plants on stands, plants on tables, plants hanging from hooks in the ceiling. A spider plant reached out toward them and Draco batted it away.

"Sorry about that," Ginny said, sounding not at all apologetic. "Kreacher's taken up indoor gardening."

"I can see that," Hermione said, trying not to laugh. "Have you had Neville over to enjoy all this greenery?"

"We have," Ginny said. "He and Kreacher have had long conversations about fertilizer. I had no idea there were so many kinds. Or kinds at all." She grinned at Draco. "Harry should be right down, by the way. He was trying to tie a bow on a little something he found for you and wanted to get it just right."

Ginny offered them all drinks and they settled into what had once been the formal parlour of the Ancient and Noble House of Black and was now an almost empty room with just enough chairs for them and a large pot of gossiping dahlias in the window. The dahlias whispered behind their petals as Ginny apologized, this time sounding more sincere, for the barren room. "We donated all the dark books to the Restricted Section at Hogwarts," she said, " and let the Ministry do a sweep to get anything especially foul the Blacks had left behind out."

"That didn't leave much," Draco observed.

"Not really," Ginny admitted. "And my mum might have tossed a bunch more out of spite when she cleaned, but I wasn't going to object when she was giving the place a good scrubbing from cellar to attic."

No one knew quite what to say about Molly Weasley so an uncomfortable silence settled over them after that. Hermione and Draco's appointment as the new teachers of Defense Against the Dark Arts had yet to be made public at their request. Minerva McGonagall planned to make the announcement at the Sorting Feast and they all assumed that Molly Weasley would have things to say about it. Fortunately, she'd have to say them via owl as Theodore had said, unless there was another Weasley wedding at Nott Manor, the woman wasn't welcome back.

The elves seemed to share his opinion so it was really about a fifty-fifty chance she'd even be allowed in for a wedding.

Harry broke the silence when he sauntered through the doorway. "Malfoy," he said. "Such a pleasure." He tossed a package at the man and, with deft resources borne of almost as many years playing Seeker as Harry, Draco caught it easily. "Unfortunately," Harry said, "Death Eater plates are just not a thing, and I so wanted to return your thoughtful gift from last spring, but I just can't match it." He grinned at Draco began to untie the bow. "These will have to do."

Draco looked at the linen tea towels with the embroidered white ferrets Potter had given him. They were rather well made, if he wanted to be honest.

"Okay, Potter," he said as he kept the smirk off his face. "It's on."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, as always, lovely readers._**


	186. Chapter 186

Padma Patil washed her hands and sighed as she turned back to the man perched on the edge of the examining table. Something about the nature of sitting on what amounted to a long, padded table made everyone seem a trifle absurd and Lucius Malfoy was no exception. For all that he regarded her with his mouth turned up in what was probably a permanent sneer and for all the expense he hadn't spared on his shoes or his trousers, he looked a bit pathetic as he sat there, his legs dangling.

If Padma were being totally honest, she rather liked the way the patrician aristocrat was reduced to uncomfortable patient by the structure of the office visit. He'd wanted her to come to his home but she'd owled back and told him she didn't make house calls.

She was, as she'd pointed out, just starting her training and very little of her time was her own. She certainly couldn't spare the afternoon it would require to go see him. She'd never expected him to come in and see her. That he had piqued her interest in a way Hermione's notes or her brief conversation with the man at Pansy's wedding had not. The man wasn't just suffering, he was willing to explore experimental treatments.

"There are things we can try," she said. "Most Muggle medicines are not as effective as our potions but they do have some insight into the way the nervous system works - or doesn't work - that we don't have any analogous treatments for." She went into a more detailed explanation of some of the research she'd done on degenerative nerve conditions as well as auto-immune disorders after getting Hermione's notes and the man nodded several times as she spoke. She was surprised he was able to follow her and realized he'd done some research of his own.

He wanted to set up her up with her own research lab. "You are tackling areas of medicine no one else in our community is willing to approach," he told her as she demurred, reminding him of her youth and inexperience. "Think of how much good you could do with the kind of resources I can lay at your feet."

"Your funding being wholly altruistic, of course," she said dryly.

Lucius Malfoy smiled at that. "Of course not, Miss Patil," he said. "I have quite the vested interested in your success on many levels."

She raised an eyebrow at that.

"I would rather prefer to not be in pain," he said. 'I've found daily reminders of my weakness and mortality to be a goad towards embracing new ideas."

"And?" she prompted him.

"That the Malfoy family sponsored and funded a research facility on integrating Muggle medical advances would do a small bit to restore our good name," he said. "I would prefer my son not go through life burdened by my bad decisions."

"Your son and his Muggle-born fiancee," Padma said.

"Indeed."

She rubbed at her head. Even though she knew the man was using her she thought she'd be a fool to turn down any offer of funding. Three months into her training at St. Mungo's and one thing she'd learned was how conservative the place was. If the methodology had worked for the Healer's great-grandmother, it was good enough for today. Vaccines were unthinkable, even against common illnesses like Dragon Pox, and even suggestions as benign as 'consider a healthier diet' were regarded as radical and beyond the purview of the Healer. There just wasn't that much to learn because everything was done the way it always had been. Memorize the basic spells and keep a good reference library on hand and that was it. Everything she'd suggested she was interested in looking into during her weekly meetings with her advisor had been kindly but firmly rejected. "That's not the way we do things at St. Mungo's," she'd been told.

"Just… set it up," she told the man in front of her. "I need a space and some assistants - _young_ assistants who won't spout blood purity at me or suggest we try leeches - and then I'll send you a list."

Lucius Malfoy's smile was too practiced to be sincere but she suspected her was genuinely pleased to have gotten his way. He thanked her and left, letting her assist him down from the table where he'd gamely sat for his examination and their discussion, and she watched the door close behind him.

"Padma Patil," she asked herself. "What have you gotten yourself into?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - As always, thanks and love to readingserpent who beta reads all the Padma chapters and served as a double beta reader here because of her knowledge of the medical field. shayalonnie, of course, has to read all of it and is a treasure._**


	187. Chapter 187 (Raksha Bandhan)

After her emotionally exhausting meeting with Lucius Malfoy, Padma went home to see Parvati. "Happy Thursday," she said and her twin laughed. They didn't get to see enough of one another even now that Padma wasn't at Hogwarts any more, and even today was a short visit before Padma apparated to Theo's to have dinner. She meant to question Draco about his father before he took off to spend the last few days before the school year started organizing and reorganizing his classroom and office. He and Hermione were nervous they'd somehow muck the entire thing up and they channeled those nerves into excessive preparation. Padma's reassurance they couldn't possibly be worse than the last eight teachers hadn't helped.

When she arrived on Theodore's steps, one of his cheerful elves bustled her into the Manor, making elfy noises about how at least _she_ dressed appropriately for a young lady of quality. Padma glanced down at the robes she had on and briefly wondered what that was all about before Susan shooed the elf away and hugged her. Padma laughed as she was led into the back parlour that had become the newest iteration of the classroom where they'd met for Recovery Group the year before. Things had changed; Blaise had joined them, Hannah and Neville were holed up in their flat in Hogsmeade and elves supplied the snacks, but the sense that this was a safe place remained the same.

"How'd it go?" Draco asked her as she took a glass of water with some fall raspberries bobbing about it in.

"It was fine," she said. They all watched her and pretended not to as Susan nudged a plate of cheese and crackers toward her. She sighed and took one and they all relaxed as she popped the bit of cheddar into her mouth.

"Is she allergic to milk or something?" Blaise Zabini, their newest member, demanded. "Is it necessary to stare at her while she eats as if she might break out into spots?"

Susan flushed and Theodore laughed but, to Padma's relief, no one decided to explain her history of issues with food. She felt humiliated enough that she had them; to have to talk about them to anyone, much less Blaise Zabini who'd spent seven years prowling the corridors of Hogwarts with his cold eyes and arrogantly tilted chin, seemed unbearable.

"I brought you something," she said, and fished the braided orange and yellow bracelet out of her pocket and tossed it to Hermione. The woman turned it back and forth and finally asked what it was. Padma took another cracker and said, "It's Raksha Bandhan today. Not a festival my family's ever really done much with since it's just me and Parvati, but I saw the bracelets when I was out shopping and I thought of you and Theodore."

"Do we get to smear chalk on things?" Theodore asked, obviously thinking of the school-wide Holi festival Padma had managed to coerce Minerva McGonagall into sponsoring.

She rolled her eyes. "No, Theodore," she said. "No spraying water either. A girl ties the bracelet on her brother's wrist. It's for good health and prosperity and all that. Afterwards you eat sweets, that's all."

"I'm not one to turn down good wishes," Theodore said and thrust his wrist out towards Hermione. "Get on with it, sis."

"We're not really - " Hermione began but Padma waved her hand.

"Near enough," she said.

Hermione looked uncomfortable but she fumbled with the simple bracelet until she'd gotten a knot in place to hold it around Theodore's wrist. He hugged her and whispered into her ear, "Best sister ever."

She wrapped her own arms around him and squeezed. "I love you," she murmured. They stood there, leaning into one another, as the rest of them munched on the cheese and crackers until it began to seem awkward.

"We just need Pansy to make some kind of remark about how sweet this is, but could we move on to the eating portion of the evening," Susan said. "It feels weird to not have her endless snotty remarks."

"Theodore gets a very cunning bracelet," Draco said. "Does Hermione get anything out of this deal?"

"My love's not enough?" Theodore asked, pressing his hand to his heart. "I think I'm hurt."

"Oh, didn't I mention that?" Padma asked. "You give her a present now." She grinned at him. "Something thoughtful. Or money."

Theodore shook his head and laughed. "Can I have a raincheck for a day to come up with something? Not cricket, Padma, to spring this on me."

"I think I can give you a day," Hermione said.

He pulled her back into a tight hug and said, "This makes us family for real."

"We already were," she said. "We already were."

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, as always, to readingserpent for beta reading. While this is hardly a true representation of Raksha Bandhan, Padma does basically just show up with a bracelet and makes them wing it._**

 ** _Dating: In 1999 Raksha Bandhan fell on Thursday, August 26th._**


	188. Chapter 188 (Theodore's Gift)

Theodore tossed the box down in front of Hermione at breakfast. "Just a little something to make good on my Padma-enforced brotherhood." He grinned at her with such delight as she picked it up she worried he'd made a late night run to see George Weasley, as improbable as such a trip would be. Still, with Theodore's occasional bursts of bratty humor, it paid to be careful.

"Is this going to explode?" she asked. The box was small enough she didn't think he could have squeezed much into it, and it was just an odd little used container that had probably once held tablets or plasters. He'd tied it with some random bit of string. It looked like nothing quite so much as a box a small child would give you with grubby hands.

From a child she would have expected it to contain an especially nice rock or a dead bug with pretty wings. From Theodore who knew what such lack of obvious plotting would reveal. "It's not going to catch anything on fire, is it?"

The way Blaise scooted very carefully away from her was not reassuring. Theodore claimed to have been the quiet one at Hogwarts, and yet the idea that he might give someone an exploding box didn't seem out of the question to a man who'd lived with him for seven years. Sometimes Hermione doubted Theodore's early insistence he'd had no friends but Draco even if he hadn't been the center of social life George and Fred Weasley had been.

She really missed Fred some days. She worried about George. She kept meaning to stop by and visit him but after the whole Ron debacle, not to mention the Molly issues, she wasn't sure she'd be welcome.

"Would I do that?" Theodore asked her, a hand pressed to his heart in his standard pose of wounded innocence.

Draco coughed into his hand and didn't answer. When Hermione set the box down and returned to eating with no apparent plans to open it, Theodore began to look a little more uncomfortable and the possibility the thing was on a timer began to seem likely. "Why don't you trust me?" he asked.

She lifted her wrist and mimicked what he'd said at Christmas as she displayed the charm bracelet she still wore every day. "I know how much you like riding dragons?"

"Did he really say that?" Susan demanded as Blaise was overtaken by a coughing fit.

"He did," Hermione confirmed.

"You did ride a dragon," Theodore said. "It was an important part of how you saved us all! Why am I the bad guy for wanting to honor that?"

They all looked at him with expressions ranging from amused to disbelieving until he muttered, "It's not going to explode."

Hermione sighed but untied the bow and opened the little box he'd given her. "Theodore," she said, the words almost strangled as she looked at his gift. "This is too much." She pulled out an antique diamond tennis bracelet and met his guileless blue eyes with her own wide ones. "I'm sure if we ask Padma she'd say this is too much. I'm sure it's supposed to be something little. Something symbolic. Not…not _this_. This is… this is nothing."

Theodore came around the table and took the delicate piece from her hands and fastened it around her wrist. "It was my mother's," he said softly. "And, as we all know, I am unlikely to have a wife to give it to, or a daughter, so I'd like you to have it."

Blaise let out a low whistle as he eyed the bracelet and that confirmed Hermione's feeling this bracelet was something, even by pureblood standards.

"I can't," Hermione began.

"Have to," Blaise said. She looked at him and he raised his brows in an almost mocking challenge. "Unless you really are that rude."

"Blaise," Susan hissed.

"Merlin fucking a randy goat," Draco said into the pause. "Now I have to have you _and_ Potter as pseudo-brothers,Theodore? What next? Is my father going to be Blaise's mother's next conquest? I liked being an only child. It was good. Now I have brothers coming out my ass. Why does the universe hate me this much?"

Hermione bit her lip as she looked at him, worried,suddenly, that this was really something he was bothered by, but, despite the crude complaint, Draco looked like he was overwhelmed and trying not to cry.

"Two for the price of one," Theodore said, smirking at Draco. "But don't think I'll be making you share Potter. You can keep him all for yourself."

"Bare is the back, and all that," Blaise said with no inflection in his voice. He took a sip from his mug and said, "Congratulations."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - "Bare is the back of a brotherless man." - from Njáls saga_**

 ** _I wasn't going to do a bit showcasing what Theodore gave her, but so many people reviewed that they looked forward to seeing what he came up with I had to. (Because, yes, reviews do impact the story :) )_**


	189. Chapter 189

"Draco!"

Draco almost fell over as Trista hurled herself at him with enough momentum to make him consider grooming her to be a beater. She'd be old enough to try out for Quidditch this year and even if she only got on the team as a relief player she'd get some practical experience, as Quidditch injuries were inevitable, and by the time she was a third or fourth year she'd be unstoppable.

His rumination was stopped when Sarah flung herself at him as well, followed by Crina and Ivy. "If you break me," he said trying to keep from falling over, "I can't pay for your ice cream!"

All four girls let him go at once and at that he did finally stumble over and have to catch himself on a lamppost. Sarah's mum looked amused as he brushed at his trousers and tried to regain his dignity. "Are you sure you can handle all four of them?" she asked.

"Four twelve-year-old girls," Draco said. "How bad could it be."

The look she gave him suggested she pitied his naiveté. All she said, however, was, "Have a good time, girls, and be nice to Mr. Malfoy. He didn't need to offer to take you out for ice cream." She looked around. "Be back here in an hour. I'll get all your books and spare the bookshop your chaos while he sugars you up."

And with that she was off and Draco was dragged to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour by a flock he thought seemed less like ducklings and more like chattering magpies. They asked him questions about his summer without waiting for an answer. Were he and Hermione still engaged? Had they gotten married? Hadn't Pansy's wedding been wonderful? They'd never seen a dessert table as glorious as the dessert table at that wedding. They'd seen Theodore dancing with someone who looked like Ginny Weasley. Was that his boyfriend? What was his name? Were they going to get married too? And how did you know if a boy liked you? Or a girl? How had Draco known he'd liked girls and not boys or did he like both? And wasn't it unfair that Crina's mum wouldn't let her apply makeup charms?

"I'm _twelve_ ," the tiny girl said with an actual stomp of her foot. "I'm nearly an _adult_. I don't see why I can't wear what I want."

Draco was spared having to answer the question about Crina's desires to paint her face because they'd reached the front of the line and he told them to get whatever they wanted. Theodore would later almost choke he laughed so hard when Draco told him that. "They're _twelve,"_ he would say. "Babies that you set free to get whatever they wanted. Did you really think they'd just get a demure, single cone?"

They did not get demure single cones. They each got giant waffle cones with four different scoops, each scoop a different flavour. They got toppings. They got a chocolate sauce that dripped down the side of the huge cones. They got whipped cream that ended up on their noses and cheeks. Draco watched Crina as she explained with utter seriousness that she was grown up enough to wear eye shadow _and_ lipstick and that her mum was being beyond unfair, all without telling her there was a dollop of whipped cream on the tip of her nose.

He did manage to answer most of their questions. Yes, he and Hermione were engage and, no, they hadn't gotten married. The dessert table at Pansy's wedding had indeed been extraordinary. The man they'd seen Theodore dancing with was Ginny Weasley's older brother Percy and Draco was unsure of the status of their relationship because Percy had been abroad all summer but he thought you could safely call it dating. He had no idea if the two planned to get married. He'd just known he liked girls and who was this boy they were concerned about knowing whether he liked them or not?

They refused to answer that question, which he supposed was fair because he refused to weigh in on the makeup issue.

Liberal application of cleaning charms were necessary at the end of the outing, though he gave up on the spot where some of the chocolate sauce had spilled onto him.

"We'll miss you _so much_ this year," Sarah sniffled as she hugged him goodbye. "It won't be the same at Hogwarts without you."

"Who will teach us to fly?" Trista demanded.

"Yeah," Ivy said. "Who?" She had her hands on her hips in a tough girl pose but she sounded like she was trying not to cry.

Draco looked helplessly at Sarah's mum who just laughed. "If the rumor I heard from a little bird who knows a certain headmistress is right," she said. "You girls will be just fine. Now let Mr. Malfoy go so he can go try to get the chocolate stain out of his shirt."

"It'll be fine," he said.

She laughed. "I'll see you later."

He waved goodbye to the duckling magpies and they flew off with Sarah's mum. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so tired in all his life.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Love, as always, to all of you._**


	190. Chapter 190

Hermione flooed back and forth three times to test the connection between Theodore's main fireplace and her office at Hogwarts. "It still works?" Draco asked her when she stomped across the hearth the final time, flicking ashes from her trousers with vigorous movements of her hands.

She sighed. "I'm being crazy, aren't I?" she asked.

"Just a little," he said. He caught her hands in his. "Why are you the nervous one?" he asked. "I'm the one she'll get the Howlers about. You're the war heroine. People will be thrilled you're back. They'll tell McGonagall she managed quite the coup getting you to stay on and teach. Me, well…"

He trailed off and gave her the 'everyone hates me but what can you do?' smile that made her heart break a little.

"She's asked us to call her Minerva," Hermione said, ignoring the tightening in her chest at Draco's expression.

"Can't," Draco said. "That'd be like calling Professor Snape _Severus_. And he shielded me from hell more than once and it would still be weird to call him by his first name. McGonagall? Can't do it."

The both paused a moment as they considered the dead man who'd been so much more than he seemed. "I still feel guilty for hating him," Hermione confessed.

"He was hateful to you," Draco said.

"Still."

Hermione took a deep breath. "Anyway," she said, "the office is set up, I've charmed multiple copies of the syllabus for every year, and I guess there's nothing more that we can do until classes start day after tomorrow."

"At least she didn't corner you into taking on duties as Head of Gryffindor," Draco said. At Hermione's guilty look he groaned. "Oh, she did, didn't she?"

"Not _exactly_ ," Hermione hedged. "She's still technically handling that despite being Headmistress, but she did ask if I'd keep an eye on them for her and be a place they could go to talk if they had questions or problems."

"So you'll be doing the work without either the title or the salary." Draco sounded less than pleased. Hogwarts hadn't stopped exploiting Hermione's tendency to martyr herself at the slightest invitation; McGonagall had apparently just redirected that habit from keeping Harry Potter alive and Ron Weasley doing his homework to helping the miserable bastards in Gryffindor. "They aren't even nice to you," he said, failing to hide the way he was fuming. "They harassed you almost all year because of me."

"Well, if they do that this year I can take points," Hermione said.

Draco almost managed to contain his snort of derision. They both knew she hadn't done a thing when her Housemates had left a note reading 'Death Eater's Whore' stuck to her door; no one with any sense thought she'd defend herself now by taking points from students in her House who stabbed her with words and innuendo.

She seemed to consider the idea. "Maybe that would be an abuse of power, though," she said.

"What about your research?" he asked, hoping a different tactic would work. "How can you teach twenty-eight sections of Defense, run Gryffindor House, and have time to do that thing about the wandless magic?"

"I'm not looking at wandless magic, exactly," she said. "And it's not twenty-eight sections. It's twenty-two. After O.W.L.s all the Houses will be combined for sixth and seventh year." She gave him a level look he chose to ignore. If he was being hyperbolic, he was being hyperbolic. "As you know."

"And I know you want to assign endless essays," Draco continued. He'd argued with her about her homework load. Hermione had never met an essay she didn't like and his insistence that she was overdoing it had fallen on deaf ears so he'd yanked her outline away from her and started crossing things out. "I'm a teacher of this class too," he'd said. It was still more he felt was reasonable and she'd said he was watering the course down too much and now it wasn't rigorous enough. Theodore had listened to them and said he would pay them good money if they would just have that argument in front of students.

"Hardly endless," she said. "And since you refuse to let me assign more than one ever two weeks, that leaves plenty of time for Gryffindor House."

"You're getting too good at that," Draco said, admitting he was cornered and mostly admiring how neatly she'd done it. "Did you concede the essays knowing you'd have that to use if I ever complained you were doing too much?"

She smiled at him. "I've loved you a while now. You can't be surprised I've picked up a few of your manipulative ways."

"Sorting Feast tomorrow," Draco said, dropping the subject. She nodded. The Sorting Feast was coming and with it the official announcement they would be the teachers for Defense. She wondered how many owls McGonagall - Minerva - would get and whether she'd get one from Molly Weasley.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! The sun is shining. The kitten is chirping. And you are beautiful._**


	191. Chapter 191

Theodore Nott said goodbye to Draco and Hermione and rolled his eyes at the witch's fussing and worry. "I'm not _six,"_ he said at last. "I am allowed to be home by myself during the day, _and_ you've already been at Hogwarts more than you've been here for much of the last several weeks." He made a point of sipping from his coffee and looking around. "I plan to enjoy the peace and quiet for a change. No shrieking hooligans with their chirping pets running around, no Andy zooming through the back park as if he could make that broom go faster by sheer force of will, no fear I'll turn a corner and run into you two shagging on some antique chair."

Hermione looked as if she didn't believe him but kissed him on the cheek. "We'll be back late," she said. "The Feast goes long, and then I have to get the first year Gryffs settled, but I'll poke my head into your room to make sure you're okay."

"I'll be _fine_ ," he said again, and almost shoved her toward the floo.

Draco followed her into the spurt of green fire and then they were gone. Susan had,as usual, been up before the sun even rose to go to the Ministry and start slogging through the day's assignments. She'd spent most of the summer sorting petitions to help determine what cases should go before the Wizengamot and she swore it was actually very interesting, other than how it was also total drudgery when you spent the day stuck with one of the more self-important members of wizarding's governing body. "Aren't they all self-important?" Theodore had asked her.

"Only most," she'd said with a sigh.

He felt miserably guilty she was doing this. He knew clerking for the Wizengamot was an honor and most witches with an eye on politics would jump through hoops for the chance to get an insider's look at how things really worked but he also knew Susan was doing it with her eye on a specific goal.

The compassionate release program.

Theodore still went to visit his father every week. He hadn't mentioned to his father that Draco had pulled every string he had to try to get Thoros released to St. Mungo's and gotten nowhere. He hadn't mentioned that even Harry Potter's appeal had been brushed aside. He certainly hadn't mentioned that the Notts had no influence left to broker. It was down to Susan and her hope of manipulating the system from within.

Theodore didn't expect anything to come of that and hated she was working so hard. She brushed his objections aside and took off every morning as if sorting through the idiot requests the Wizengamot received would somehow help.

And now they were all gone.

Nott Manor was so quiet.

Blaise hadn't gotten up. To say the man was not a morning person didn't begin to cover it. He'd surely stumble down the stairs, muttering 'fuck' and 'what the hell' in a few hours. Now, though, the house was silent.

"Silent as the grave," he muttered to himself as he padded back to the sunlit room where he sank into a chair and contemplated what he'd do all day, the first time in years he hadn't spent this day on a train rumbling his way toward school.

"It's a bit of a shock the first year, isn't it?"

He didn't twitch though a smile crept over his face as Percy Weasley sat down in the seat next to him and passed him a bag. When Theodore opened it and looked down at a cinnamon roll the smile grew. "You didn't have to do this," he said.

Percy shrugged. "I know you've got elves enough to open a pasty shop of your own - "

"Don't give them any ideas," Theodore muttered.

" - but I thought you might enjoy a little company."

Theodore pulled the sticky roll out of the bag and got frosting all over his fingers in the process. "Don't you need to be at work?" he asked.

Percy shook his head. "So many people take today off so they can take their kids to the train station nothing gets done anyway." He frowned a bit at that, clearly somewhat disapproving, before he said. "We could go enjoy Diagon Alley now that it's not overrun with last minute school shoppers."

"Susan went in," Theodore said.

"Why?" Percy asked. At Theodore's shrug he sighed. "I need to talk to her," he said. "She's going about this all wrong."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, as always, to the amazing Orlando Switch, who looks over all the Theo/Percy chapters for me!_**


	192. Chapter 192 (The Sorting Feast)

They eased into their seats at the High Table, both feeling like imposters despite the warm welcome they'd gotten from every member of the staff. "Do you expect someone to come over at any moment and ask, in an outraged voice, just what do you think you're doing?" Draco asked Hermione in a low whisper. She nodded. Her face had gone a bit grey and she was clutching onto the stem of her wine glass with a little too much force.

Draco had been shocked, and relieved, to discover there was wine at the High Table. It was a vintage his mother would have refused to drink but he wouldn't be expected to choke down pumpkin juice so he wasn't complaining. After eight years of Hogwarts pumpkin juice he felt if he never had another glass that would be just fine.

"It will be fine," Aurora Sinistra said, patting Draco on the hand. "The first year might be a little rough because you're so close in age to the oldest students, but, before you know it, they'll all seem like babies and you'll think you're talking to someone's father because the years will blur together."

Draco wasn't sure he found that reassuring.

Nor was the way the older students saw the pair of them at the High Table and immediately began gossiping. He saw heads tilt in toward one another and whispers exchanged behind cupped hands as the news Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger were both sitting with the professors flew through the Hall. Andy, at least, looked delighted, and he nudged Sari and the pair of Gryffindors each gave him a wholly indiscreet thumbs up. When the second year Slytherin girls came in they squealed so loudly their own prefect hushed them and Trista looked as if she were almost vibrating in her seat with happiness. Draco scanned the faces of the older students. They had mostly shuttered their faces and while some nodded at him with almost imperceptible movements others let their eyes slide over him. They were waiting to see how this played out before committing themselves.

He wondered how many students would send owls home tonight. He wondered how many were already composing the outraged notes in their heads.

"It's different from last year," Hermione said as she looked around and Draco made a snort of agreement. That was more than obvious. She hit him on the arm and he glared at her. "Not _that_ ," she said. "I don't just mean where we're seated. People aren't as… they aren't checking out the exits and only a handful keep touching their wands every few minutes."

Draco looked around and realized she was right. Last year everyone had been braced against the Carrows and war. This year there was already a whole class seated that had never known Hogwarts as a battlefield, and another class like them was coming across the lake. This year people were gossiping about him instead of watching their peers and waiting to see who would strike or break or bleed.

"It's better," he said and she nodded.

When the door opened and the scared first years gathered in dark-robed clumps, Draco said, "Want to bet on whose House gets more this year?"

"Gryffindor will," Hermione said without hesitating. "What are the stakes?" He raised his brows at her and she rolled her eyes but said, "You're on."

The first little one sat, his legs dangling over a stool too high for him, and was sent by the Sorting Hat off to Ravenclaw. He looked relieved and sat at the foot of their table with wide eyes and a tie he'd somehow already charmed to be blue. "Someone's been doing magic out of Hogwarts," Hermione said in amusement as she noticed that.

"Says one of the worst offenders," Draco said back. "Who told me she'd practiced the entirety of first year charms before she even stepped foot onto the train?"

Hermione pursed her lips and said, "Pay attention to the sorting." He laughed but looked back at the stool.

The next girl was sent to Hufflepuff, and the third to Ravenclaw. The fourth, a pretty dark-haired girl who looked even more nervous than her peers, was the first to make it into Gryffindor.

"Azusa," Draco said. "Pretty name. That's one for you."

"I don't know why you even make these bets," Hermione said, giving the newest member of her House a little wave. "You always lose." The girl's eyes widened and she gave a tiny wave back before scooting into her seat. Sari leaned over and whispered something to her and both girls looked over at Draco and Hermione.

"Someone's getting the news on who you are," Draco said. "And I do rather feel I win either way."

She hit him again as a little boy was Sorted into Slytherin.

"We're tied," Draco said. "I might win outright."

He didn't but, as he'd said, it wasn't the worst way to lose.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all so much for pushing this to new review round number heights. You are amazing and I'm so grateful._**


	193. Chapter 193 (Molly's Response)

"I'm sorry." Minerva McGonagall regarded the fuming woman who had appeared outside her office door that morning. Long friendship and fighting together in two wars had demanded she do the woman the courtesy of listening to her, but it was the first full day of the term and her patience was wearing thin. "I was not under the impression I was required to justify my staffing decisions to you."

"He's a Death Eater," Molly Weasley nearly hissed again. "He should be in Azkaban, not teaching children. How can you allow… and he's too young. Both of them are. They won't be able to distance themselves enough from the students to- "

"He was found not guilty," Minerva reminded Molly Weasley. "He was a child at the time, Molly, something I would advise you to recall. They were all children. We trained children to be soldiers and - "

"And I objected to that too," the woman snapped. She put her hands on her hips and leveled a glare that had raised seven children and cowed a husband. Minerva McGonagall was unmoved.

"Hermione Granger has been organizing other people's educations since she was twelve or thirteen," Minerva said. "She was the organizing force behind Mr. Potter's - "

"He taught them," Molly said. "He did. Harry! Not some slip of a Mug - "

"Be careful, Molly," Minerva said. There was a long pause while the two women stared at one another and then Minerva began to gather up her things so she could go to the first section of Transfiguration. After the previous, peaceful year parents had been reassured and this year's new class was significantly larger than the last one had been. There were even some older students who had been pulled back from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to return to the British school. Minerva counted it as a success, but a success that generated work and she simply did not have time for the inevitable outrage at her choices for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Hogwarts traditionally operated autonomously and she had no intention of allowing that to change. "I have a class to get to, Molly. I can escort you as far as the main corridor but from there I am afraid you will have to let yourself out."

"I'll go to the Ministry," Molly warned. "I'll complain."

Minerva held open the door to her office and waited for Molly Weasley to go through it.

"You cannot allow that boy to teach," Molly said as she passed her. "Hermione Granger…she's too young but no one has ever denied she's clever enough, though I'd think using her to rebuild your Muggle Studies program would be better. But not him. He'll teach - "

"- that the Dark Arts are a horror," Minerva said. They began going down the stairs. "You would have trouble finding someone with a more acute sense of how vile and dangerous that path is."

"I lost _my son,"_ Molly said. "I lost _my brothers_. He's lost - "

"His childhood," Minerva said. The words were gentle but implacable. "He lost his childhood and his innocence and I suspect he still wakes screaming some nights from visions of Voldemort. We don't know what happened in Malfoy Manor, Molly - "

"Which is my point!"

" - but I think we can be certain that Draco Malfoy was so scarred by them that no one can portray why we do not _ever_ embrace the Dark Arts more effectively."

Molly stopped walking and looked at the Headmistress. "He can't teach," she said.

Minerva blinked slowly. "The students who withdrew from your class to study with Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger had higher average N.E.W.T. scores than the ones who stayed with you despite the fact that most of what the two of them did was argue about spell minutia and ethics while the seventh years listened and sometimes chimed in." Minerva's smile slowly stretched over her face. "I would say he is a very good teacher indeed, though I suspect they'll rely a bit more on the Socratic method than essays and memorization."

Molly stalked off, muttering about how Minerva could pull out test scores and fancy ideas all she liked but no one would stand for a Death Eater teaching at Hogwarts and she'd soon see about that. Minerva forbore to list the names of all the Death Eaters who had taught at Hogwarts.

Pomona Sprout met her a few feet further down the hall. "Outraged?" she asked.

Minerva nodded. "As are the parents of at least a dozen students. The Howlers came in droves." She turned to watch the back of Molly's head disappear around a corner.

"Second thoughts?" Pomona asked, though she knew the answer and Minerva didn't even have to say, 'Not a one'.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! Another one of the daily, short chapters for your enjoyment. Your responses are the dusting of nutmeg on my frou-frou coffee drink! Mmm. Coffee…_**


	194. Chapter 194 (Breakfast with Susan)

Blaise picked at his toast and ignored the letter from his mother the owl had brought. Draco and Hermione had flooed off to teach their first day of classes and Theodore had disappeared to have another breakfast with his Weasley. Apparently Weasleys were quite the thing now: first Pansy and now Theodore. Blaise had the unkind thought that he hoped he wasn't going to be required with take up with a member of that family because Ronald, who might be the only single one, was not his type. He didn't quite squelch that horrific but almost humorous thought before his lips tweaked up in a half smile. At least he'd have been able to enjoy horrifying his step-father with that one.

"What's so funny?"

Susan had settled across the table. She eyed his opened mail but only poured herself some juice.

"I was just wondering if I should ask Ron Weasley out," Blaise said. "I try to keep up with trends and all."

Susan appeared to seriously consider the idea as she began buttering her own toast. "I think you could do better," she said at last. Blaise snorted in agreement at that until she said, "I mean, I think George is still single."

He choked and glared at her. "Some Hufflepuff you are," he said. "That was mean."

Susan shrugged. "I don't think being a Hufflepuff means I'm required to be nice all the time," she said. She tipped her head to the side. "Did you ever meet Smith?"

"Zacharias?" Blaise asked. At Susan's nod he grimaced. "Unfortunately."

Theodore, he reflected to himself, hadn't been quite as good about hiding that little liaison as he thought he had. It had taken the knowledge that, with the world getting more and more dangerous, hexing the Smith bastard would probably have had worse consequences than he was prepared to endure to keep his wand holstered. The bastard had deserved boils that never went away. When Blaise looked up, Susan appeared rather smug and he sighed and conceded the point. "Fine," he said. "Some of your lot are arseholes."

"And some Slytherins are not," she said.

"Well, I am," Blaise said. "Whatever happy drugs Theodore and Draco are on, no one passed any out to me." He looked back at the letter and could feel his stomach churn as he contemplated having to open it and read it and write back. He loved his mother, but he wasn't always sure he liked her. He knew she was the most selfish person he'd ever met and he'd known Pansy Parkinson since she was eleven.

"Pure blood elitist?" Susan asked as he sat there in silence.

He tipped his head to the side at her question and said, "Sì."

"Big fan of Voldemort?"

He gave her a narrow-eyed look at that and said, "No."

She tipped her own head in a near-perfect mimicry of the arrogant little tilt he'd just done. "No?"

"You are… are you _sure_ you're a Puff?" Blaise demanded. That had been a knife thrust he himself would he been proud of.

Susan shrugged and stood up. "I must be. That's what the Hat said, and I'm off to sort through another day of paperwork with hard work and toil and all." She squinched her face up as tightly as she could before releasing the grimace and shaking her head from side to side. "Sometimes I feel like it's a bit of a… I wish my aunt… sometimes I don't quite know what to do."

Blaise didn't answer for a moment. He'd suffered no losses in the war. His mother had kept herself neatly out of the fray and he himself had sat across the table from Hermione Granger at Horace Slughorn's little club and kept his face a study in neutrality and his arm clear of any fanatic's Mark. He wasn't sure how to respond to this woman who'd lost everything, as far as he could tell, and been left in one of Theodore's spare rooms.

"Just keep slogging on?" he suggested at last. "Don't get caught if you break any rules?"

Susan, who had been turning to leave the table and head off to do whatever horrible and boring thing she did at the Ministry of Magic, stopped and turned back to him. "Don't get caught," she murmured as if considering the idea for the first time.

Blaise poked at his toast again. It was dry and cold and he wondered if the elves were getting some kind of petty revenge over some perceived slight. "You have been living with a bunch of sneaks," he said. "I'd think you'd have picked a few things up by now. Best advice is always to not get caught."

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, as always (though I don't say it every chapter) to the wonderful Shayalonnie, who alpha reads every chapter._**


	195. Chapter 195 (Blaise Writes a Letter)

After Susan left, Blaise eyed the letter from his mother. It sat on the table, a little beacon of guilt, until he opened it with an angry rip. His mother was fine.

Well, of course she was. Elora Zabini had never not been fine in her entire life. He wasn't sure if that was because she had an iron will or lacked any kind of emotional self-awareness.

She and her newest husband had gone shopping in Milan. She'd seen a pair of shoes she'd considered getting for him but he was so hard to please and, besides, she wasn't sure of his size.

Blaise considered that his mother didn't know what size clothing he wore for a moment before moving on.

She missed him.

Well, that was unlikely to be true. Sons were awkward things to have around when you were in the flush of first love, or whatever it was.

Was he planning on coming home over the holiday? They were planning a trip to Cheval Blanc to go skiing and needed to know if they should reserve a suite for him as well, and, if he did plan on coming, did he need new skis?

"I hate snow," he muttered as he crumpled the letter and pushed his chair back. A quick accio charm and he had a sheet of parchment, a quill, and an elf glowering at him from the doorway because he wasn't clearing out so she could take his dishes away. "Just let me write this and then I'll walk it to the house owlry," he said to her and, with a huff, she stomped off.

 _Dearest Mamma,_ he wrote and then put down the quill. Did he tell her she'd picked someone too vile this time? Did he tell her he'd spent that last year at Hogwarts avoiding being asked to commit atrocities by keeping his head down? Did he tell her that had made him feel dirtier than any Mudblood ever could have ever been?He'd never been brave. He'd never been anything other than the son of a notorious socialite, photographed at every restaurant from the time he could toddle in holding her hand. _Don't make a scene_ , she'd whisper in his ears whenever he was antsy. _There are cameras, Blaise._ Control he knew. Walls he knew. He'd kept still all that year, careful not to be at war with anyone or any thing. He'd keep still now. He picked up the quill again.

 _I think I am not quite so bold as to intrude on the trip of a beautiful woman with a man she loves. I'll stay with Theodore for a bit. There might be an interesting woman here._

He set the quill down again and considered if that was too much of a falsehood and decided it wasn't. Susan wasn't to his taste, certainly. He liked them lean and leggy, dressed liked they'd walked straight off the pages of _Bella Donna_. He didn't go for girls who did some kind of legislative drudgery in an actual job with the government, all earnest and well meaning, as if hard work ever accomplished anything other than wearing out your cheap shoes fetching coffee and tea for other people. And the way she dressed was a horror even if it wasn't as bad as that dumpy Hermione Granger. He supposed it was easier for the girls he'd known in Italy. When you're a walking clothes hanger, everything looks good on you. Women with the kind of heft Susan had probably had a harder time finding clothes that looked good. Curves like hers required a little more care than a shapeless robe if you didn't want to look like some kind of beached sea creature. No, she wasn't his type at all, but she qualified as interesting so it wasn't a technical lie.

Blaise rather prided himself on never lying.

 _You know how I'm just putty in the hands of a beautiful woman. I'll see you in the spring, perhaps. Don't worry about me in the meanwhile._

As if she would.

 _Your loving son._

He signed his name and stood up to go find where Theodore kept his owls. He could hear the elf huffing behind him and turned to say, "Thank you for the toast. I can be a bit of a sluggard in the morning and I appreciate your patience."

He let the door close behind him before he could see her gratified response.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you to odaerwyn on tumblr who named the Italian witch fashion magazine for me._**


	196. Chapter 196 (Breakfast at Hogwarts)

Hermione had, in her short life, faced down an actual, literal monster. She'd been brutally hurt by a woman whose grasp on sanity had been tenuous at best but who'd known with every cell in her body that she hated Muggle-borns. She'd done anything she had to do to make sure Harry survived from the time she was eleven and set fire to Severus Snape's robes to a year spent cold, nearly starving, and on the run from a world where many good people had decided they'd just put their heads down and try to survive.

She'd done a lot of things.

She still liked to know where all the exits were. She still had a moment's fear when she saw dark-haired women in black. She knew she wasn't exactly all right for all that she'd survived with body mostly intact. She carried Draught of Peace in her bag at all times and she'd taken a dose before she'd flooed to Hogwarts this morning, Draco behind her rubbing uneasily at his arm.

Given all that she'd done and survived, she didn't understand why the idea of facing down classrooms of students filled her with such absolute terror.

She sat at the High Table at breakfast, a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ in front of her and she ignored the way certain students cast smug looks at her and Draco and she ignored the way Minerva McGonagall had risen and left the Hall after she read the words in the folded paper airplane that had flown in and landed on her plate and she ignored the way her heart was racing and her palms were sweating.

If she took another dose she wouldn't be able to teach.

She picked up the paper and rapidly put it down again. _Hogwarts Hires Death Eater. Parents Outraged,_ read the headline.

Draco looked at it and forced a smile onto his face. "Well," he said. "That was fast."

"Severus. Snape." Hermione enunciated the words with great care and Draco shrugged. That he wasn't the first teacher to walk the halls with a skull and snake burned into his arm didn't mean people disliked it less. "Quirrell," she said. " _Crouch."_

"Technically," Draco said, "Quirrell wasn't a Death Eater. More like a… Voldemort delivery device."

Hermione gaped at him and then a tiny smile began to tug at her lips.

"And to be fair," Draco went on, "No one _knew_ Moody wasn't, well, Moody." His fingers tightened around his juice glass. Barty Crouch, Jr, in his impersonation of Moody, remained one of his personal nightmares. No one, other than Minerva McGonagall, had cared the man had transfigured and then brutally assaulted him. The heroes had thought it was funny. Even the woman at his side, who cared about wretched, bossy house elves, hadn't thought about that incident until he'd pointed out it had hurt. It had been agonizing.

If anyone ever asked Draco Malfoy who, in all the wizarding world, he would be truly loyal to, he Minerva McGonagall would have made the list and it wasn't because she'd allowed him to return, and return again, to Hogwarts. It was because she hadn't even liked him but she'd still been outraged on his behalf when he'd been attacked by the mad teacher.

Hermione folded up the paper with sharp, angry movements and put her coffee on top of it. "The lack of journalistic ethics in that paper is a problem," she said.

Draco shrugged. "Between Potter and I we could probably buy it," he said. "Hell, either of us could probably buy it on our own. Want a paper?"

Her look of irritation was a clear answer, and he reached over and brushed his fingers over the back of her hand. "Ready for class?" he asked.

She nodded, then shook her head. "I managed to convince Prof… Headmis… Minerva to combine some of the sections," she said. "A stab at house unity plus it makes less work for us, so we start with Ravenclaw and Gryffindor first years." She looked over the Gryffindor table and frowned. Draco followed her glance but all he saw was a group of nervous looking first years clustered at the foot of the table. He nudged her and raised an eyebrow and she said, "It's probably nothing, but one of my new little ones didn't eat much at the feast last night and she's just nibbling on toast this morning."

"She's probably just scared," Draco said. "This place can be overwhelming when you're eleven."

"Maybe," Hermione said, then shook her head. "I'm sure you're right. It's just that after Padma I see someone not eating and I assume it has to be something bad."


	197. Chapter 197 (The First Class)

Hermione faced the first year assembled Ravenclaw and Gryffindor students and tried not to sigh. Day one of classes and, despite the small tables instead of desks, they'd already segregated themselves by House. She could tell who had been Sorted into each House by the ties and pins and headbands charmed by older members of their Houses to show off blue and bronze or red and gold.

She glanced at the little boy who'd been the first student Sorted. A quick look at her roster reminded her of his name: James Allen. He hadn't needed help making his tie blue; she wondered if he were Muggle-born and had spent the last couple of months trying every spell he saw in the book while the Ministry looked the other way, much as it had for her, or whether a family member had taught him.

She took a deep breath and said, "Some of you might know me. My name is Hermione Granger and I helped Harry Potter find and destroy Voldemort's horcruxes during the war. I'll be one of your teachers in Defense Against the Dark Arts this year."

"And I'll be the other." Draco leaned against the desk behind her, the picture of aristocratic ease. She knew the posture was a lie because his accent had slipped from the generic received pronunciation he used most of the time to the posh vowels he'd heard at home as a child. He only did that when he was nervous, pissed, or on the edge of madness in their bed.

Or when he cried out in his nightmares.

"My name is Draco Malfoy and I've had some personal experience with the Dark Arts." He rolled up his sleeve, the movement slow and deliberate, so they could all see the Mark on his arm. It had faded since Voldemort had died, and the dull grey of the snake and skull was criss-crossed with faint white lines. The class caught their collective breath at the sight. "I assume you have questions," he said.

"So before we pass out the syllabus, or talk about what we'll do this year, we thought we'd give you a chance to ask anything you want," Hermione continued.

There was a very brief pause before hands shot into the air.

"Did it hurt?"

Draco nodded. "I vomited from the pain," he said. "I thought I would die on the spot."

"What's Harry Potter _like_?"

"Brave," Hermione said, "but he never did his homework until the last minute."

"An annoyingly talented Quidditch player," Draco said. "I'm not sure he ever met a Snitch he couldn't catch."

"Are you really a Death Eater?"

There was another moment where the room seemed to wait as one. Draco sighed. "No," he said at last. However quiet his words were they still carried to the back of the room that Hermione had decorated with plants Neville had given her and portraits she'd found in old rooms of especially brave light witches and wizards in history. She had tried to make the room seem like a rather pleasant cafe where people might have gone in much of recent history to argue politics and ideas, or perhaps a salon in the house of some witch who liked collecting intellectual luminaries the way some witches collected porcelain figurines. There were even groupings of small couches and soft chairs though not a single student had dared sit in them this first day. She had made it redolent of summer and comfort and anything other than terror and evil and how to fight them and every student in her pleasant room sat in silence, fixated on Draco Malfoy and the evil and terror he'd endured.

"No," he said again. He sighed and looked down at his feet before meeting the eyes of a room of eleven-year-old children "A Mark on your arm doesn't make you a Death Eater. I knew them. I ate with them and lived with them and I knew them very, very well. I knew the sound of their feet and the sound of their laughter and I knew I wasn't one." His breath hitched a little before he went on. "I shut down everything other than trying to survive and trying to protect my parents. I thought if I just… if you learn anything this year - any one thing - learn that the Dark Art are never the answer. You think, 'just this one thing' and, step by step, your sense of self erodes until you're standing with a withered hand in your grasp and a werewolf's foul breath on your neck and there's no way out anymore and all you can do is run and hope you lose."

A Gryffindor hand thrust into the air and Draco nodded his head at the girl as Hermione braced herself for more questions about Voldemort's crew.

"Is it true you're going to set up flying classes for first years outside basic broom handling?" the girl demanded. "And where can we sign up?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I hope the first class didn't disappoint!_**


	198. Chapter 198 (The Second Class)

When the fifth year Gryffindors filed into the Defense classroom they flopped down onto the couches and threw their legs out in front of them and made a show of being insolent and indifferent to their young teachers. Hermione waited for the last student to arrive and then went through the roster. She knew most of these, of course. They were her Housemates, though they'd been tiny and beneath her notice when she'd last been a normal student, if you could call worrying about the rise of Voldemort being a normal student.

Well, it had been normal for her.

Normal was all in the perspective.

She did her spiel on giving them a day to ask questions before they moved on to addressing the syllabus, adding a warning that because this was their O.W.L. year they could expect a rigorous curriculum.

"Yeah," one boy said, not even bothering to try to hide his disdain. "Gotta prove you aren't just a worthless Death Eater lover."

Hermione leaned back against the desk and regarded the young man. He smirked back at her and Hermione considered that she'd always been very good at tests. "Your shirt is untucked," she said, "and your robe undone. You are, to put it mildly, slovenly. If you plan to put the same effort into your classwork you do into your presentation, you'll do poorly no matter who the teacher is."

His smile didn't falter. "Plan to take points?" he asked.

"We'll start with ten," she said, "for lack of respect for both yourself and your instructor. Come to the next class looking just as sloppy and I'll take ten more." She smiled back at him and his own smirk faltered.

"You can't do that," a girl protested.

Hermione looked at her. "I think you'll find I have very little patience for that type of shenanigan," she said. "Now, does anyone have any real questions?"

A girl with a curving mouth looked pleased with herself as she languidly lifted her hand into the air. "Do you think it's fair the school allowed a known Death Eater back to teach?" she asked. She tilted her head to the side, "Or a sympathizer?"

Hermione reminded herself that it was not allowed to hex students. "Who would that be, exactly?" she asked. "The boy who was forced to take the Mark when he was a year older than you are now because Voldemort threatened to kill his parents? Or do you mean me, the woman who fought and was tortured and helped defeat the darkest wizard the world has ever known? I just want to be very clear to whom you are referring before I reply?"

"Why can't we have Professor Weasley back?"

"I've already written my parents and complained!"

"He should be in Azkaban."

Hermione raised her hands and said, in a voice that even Harry Potter had known to be wary of, "Because she discriminated against students she didn't care for and her test scores were not good enough to keep her on. I'm sure your parents will be thrilled to know you are invested enough in your education to be concerned about the qualifications of your teachers. And your opinion has been duly noted but the Wizengamot did not share it. My question for you is do you want to pass your O.W.L.s?"

A hush fell over the room.

"Good," she said. "Then pull out your textbooks. I see that your emotions are too raw for the question and answer session to be of any use, and, therefore, we will move on to the subject of the class."

She could hear Draco working to control his breathing behind her.

"You," Hermione pointed to a boy who hadn't said anything. "Pass these out." He took the stack of parchment from her and began distributing them. "As you can see this is a breakdown of the most common topics covered by the O.W.L. exam. We will go over each of them in some detail and you can expect frequent quizzes to help you assess your mastery of the objective material, as well as essays to help you clarify your thoughts on the more complex, subjective questions." She looked around the room. "For tonight, please write a three foot essay on historical responses on the part of the general populace to Dark Wizards. Feel free to examine Grindelwald, Ethelred or Morgan le Fay as well as Voldemort. You may begin looking through your text for material to use, though I recommend utilizing additional sources from the library as well if you hope to get a good mark."

She controlled her smile at the grumbling as they began pulling out quills and flipping through their books. When the class was over and the students began to file out she stopped the boy who'd challenged her to prove she wasn't a Death Eater lover. "Remember to tuck your shirt in for the next class," she said.

He glowered at her but didn't say anything.

When the last student had left she turned to Draco. "Well," she said. "That could have gone better."

He let out a shaky laugh. "I'm not sure I can do this," he said.

She pretended to misunderstand. "I know we agreed not too many essays, but, don't worry, I'll grade them."

He took her hand. "You're a pain in my arse. You know that, right?"

She squeezed his fingers and didn't say anything for a while.


	199. Chapter 199 (Sign Up Sheets)

Andy signed his name on the sheet posted in the Gryffindor common room with a flourish. Flying practice with Defense teacher Draco Malfoy, available to first, second, and third years, no fee. Sari put her name under his.

"He's a Death Eater," one of the fifth years muttered in sullen protest of the entire proceeding. "He shouldn't have been allowed back."

The line of firsties waiting to put their names on the sheet, however, didn't seem to be deterred by the grumbling of a few older students, and somewhat more perceptive first and second years noticed the oldest students kept mostly silent on the matter of Draco Malfoy's supposed perfidy. Fifth years might grumble he was a Death Eater. Seventh years remembered the war too clearly to be quite as comfortable condemning what anyone had done to survive. "You-Know-Who wasn't in _my_ living room," one girl said.

The first years had raced back to their dorms after Professor Malfoy had confirmed that the rumors were true, and that there would be additional flying lessons, but that space was available on a first come, first served basis. No one wanted to be the laggard stuck on school brooms with nothing but the handful of games classes Madam Hooch offered. "I hear he got permission to supply real brooms," a girl said. "Not the old, worn out things that might as well be used to actually _sweep_." The universal contempt for the school brooms was a tiny element of true inter-House unity at Hogwarts.

The same scene played out in almost every House: some older students grumbled the man shouldn't even be allowed in the school but first years ignored them to sign up. What did murky political history and complex questions of had their professor been forced to become a Death Eater or had he been a willing participant matter in the face of getting to fly on good brooms?

Draco went from House to House to collect the sign up sheets, peppered with questions at every turn. Yes, he had gotten permission to supply brooms but, no, students couldn't use them outside the practice sessions. No, there was no cost to take the extra classes and, no, he couldn't guarantee they'd get onto the Quidditch teams if they took his flying lessons.

Draaco barely made it into the Slytherin common room before his little ducklings pounced on him.

"How could you not tell us?" Trista demanded. "You took us out for ice creams and we were all sad and said we'd miss you and you didn't say a _word."_ She stamped her foot. "I'm mad at you."

Draco looked at her helplessly. "We didn't want anyone to know," he said. "We knew there would be some less that friendly responses to my teaching here."

"Over two dozen howlers," someone said. "That might be a record."

"Don't care," Crina said. "You still should have told us."

"You can trust us to keep a secret," Ivy said. She had her arms crossed and had her very best glower on her face. The look was somewhat undermined by the very blue, very poorly applied eyeliner she'd put on only one eye before Draco had appeared and, if he managed to contain his smile at the picture she made, it wasn't without effort.

"Yeah," Sarah said. "We can keep secrets. We're _Slytherins_ , not _Gryffindorks_."

When Draco managed to escape the angry magpies and finally made it to Gryffindor, he took the sigh up sheet down, glanced at Andy's name and snorted. "You don't need extra lessons. I thought you were going out for the Quidditch team this year," he half said, half asked. "The way you were flying last summer, you should."

Students in Gryffindor gaped at Andy. "I thought you lived with your Muggle dad," one student accused. "How did you manage to fly all summer?"

Andy, with a smug little grin that wouldn't have been shocking on Draco at that age, said, "Yeah, I spent most of the holiday at Theodore's manor. There's a lot of room to fly in his back park."

"Guess you like your Death Eaters," one older girl groused, but the Gryffindor Quidditch captain eyed Andy and asked Draco in an undertone if the boy were really that good.

"Ginny said he was," Draco said. "If you don't care to take my word on the matter."

The captain laughed and said that, no, Draco might have been a dreadful, spoiled prat, but no one had ever denied he could fly well enough. She managed to get in a sly, "Though Potter was always better, of course," that Draco gritted his teeth over and about which he ranted to Hermione at some length later.

"Just challenge him to a one-on-one match," Hermione finally said in exasperation.

"Oh, I will," Draco said. "He and Ginny can come over here and we'll see who's a better flyer." He crossed his arms and sulked, his lower lip thrust out in an actual pout that made Hermione laugh.

"You are such a child," she said.

"I might be a child, but I'm still a better flyer," Draco muttered and ignored the roll of Hermione's eyes.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! Thank you, you lovely people, for all your endless kindnesses._**


	200. Chapter 200 (Draco's Reaction)

Draco had the knife in his hand when Hermione walked into the room. He hadn't even thought to lock the door, much less ward it, and could feel himself simultaneously folding over on himself and stiffening defensively.

"I'm fine," he said automatically.

She didn't say anything for a moment, and he waited for her to berate him or make him feel guilty or weak or as pathetic as he felt, but all she did was sit down in one of the chairs by the window of their room and say, "What happened?"

"She got dozens of howlers," Draco said. He didn't bother to say who he meant; they both knew. "Dozens." Once he started talking, the words came out in a rush. "And you know they weren't about you. No one wrote in screaming that the war heroine, Harry Potter's best friend, didn't belong at Hogwarts." His fingers tightened around the handle of his little knife. "It's me, the Death Eater. I shouldn't be there. I shouldn't be near their kids, shouldn't be out of Azkaban, I shouldn't even be breathing the same air as decent people."

Hermione tipped her head to the side. "Decent people," she said softly. "What are those, exactly?"

Draco could feel himself stutter to a halt as she just watched him with those steady brown eyes.

"Are they the arseholes who sent in nasty notes? Ones who didn't, I'm sure, ever put themselves on the line in the war? Or are they kids like Crina and Sarah and Andy and their parents? The ones who trusted their kids to you all summer to the point Theo started to ask if they had homes of their own to go to."

"Andy's father's a Muggle," Draco said. "He didn't exactly know what was going on with the war."

"Lots of people like you," she began.

Draco snorted. " _You_ like me," he said. "I think 'lots' might be a bit of an exaggeration."

Hermione shrugged. "Not my fault most people are stupid. I like you. Ginny likes you. If those lists I saw in the library are any indication, you'll have more flying students than you can handle - "

"They just want to fly," Draco said. "They don't like _me_."

Hermione looked at him for a while and then sighed. "You know," she said. "I didn't spend much time with the Carrows -"

"Didn't miss much," he muttered.

"- but something tells me no one was lining up to take extra classes from them."

Draco almost laughed at that idea. Everyone had done their best to stay away from the Carrows. They'd hunched down in classes and not made eye contact. They'd avoided them in the halls. No one would have voluntarily sought them out.

Well, maybe Neville. He'd been defiant and brave and impressive. Draco wished he'd been more like the Gryffindor, even if at the time the man had seemed borderline suicidal. His fingers spasmed around the knife.

"I can't do it anymore," he said to Hermione. "I can't… I'm not as good… I'm worthless. I've always been -"

"No," she said. "You're not." She took a deep breath. "Do you want me to go for a bit?"

Draco looked down and hated himself even as he said, "Yeah."

She nodded. "When you're ready," she said, "I thought we could go shopping."

"Shopping?" That was incongruous, as was the mischievous smile on her face.

"I thought you could get Harry a brush."

"A _hair_ brush?" Draco asked, an unwilling smile creeping onto his face as he composed the note in his head. _I was out with Hermione and saw this and since you've clearly never owned one I thought I'd get it for you. I've attached instructions in case you need them._

"Well, not a paint brush, no," Hermione said. "I'll be out on the porch when you're ready."

She slipped out of the room, stopping to brush her lips across his cheek and murmur she loved him. When the door shut behind her, he took a deep breath and set the knife down on his desk and pulled out a sheet of parchment instead. _Harry_ , he began. _I hate to think of any brother of mine going without and I couldn't help but notice you seem to not have a hairbrush to call your own._

 _. . . . . . . . ._

 ** _A/N - Thank you for shayalonnie, who alpha reads everything and who gave this chapter extra love._**


	201. Chapter 201 (Harry Gets a Package)

"He sent you a what?"

Ginny popped another blackberry, courtesy of what had once been the back parlour and was now a greenhouse filled with so many magical artificial lights she suspected if they hadn't hung blackout curtains people would have seen the glow from space. Kreacher's new obsession worked out well for people with hardly any furniture or household goods anyway. Harry had almost shrieked when he'd opened the package from Draco Malfoy and she wasn't quite sure what it was he was upset about.

"A _hairbrush_." Harry picked the item in question out of the box Malfoy's owl had delivered and shook it at Ginny. "He wrote out instructions on how to use it!"

Ginny reached into the bowl for more fruit and tried not to laugh. "You did give him tea towels," she pointed out.

"He gave me dessert plates!"

"And you gave him a book of contraceptive pet charms after Clem had all those babies."

"That was pretty good, wasn't it?" Harry and Ginny shared a grin at the memory of that particular present, the initial volley of the gift war. "I think I'll send him a Snitch with a note on how to catch them."

"Oh, that's mean," Ginny said with approval in her voice. "I can take it myself if you want a report on how he acts when he opens it. I'm planning on helping out with his flying lessons when I can."

Harry squinted at her. "Flying lessons?" As he flipped the hairbrush over and over again in his hand, Ginny explained that Draco was offering flying classes for younger students in addition to teaching Defense, that more kids had signed up than he could reasonably handle, but that he was too much of a softy to turn any of them away, and that she was planning on going up when she had a break from the Harpies and Harry snorted. "Trying to irritate your mum?" he asked.

"Maybe a little," Ginny admitted. It wasn't her only motivation but it certainly was a part of it. "She's being a bit of a pisser about Draco teaching, you know. Apparated up to Hogwarts to yell at McGonagall, wrote a letter the Ministry demanding she be fired and replaced with someone who would think of the moral fiber of the children and all." The look on Ginny's face suggested she was less than pleased with her mother's attitude and choices about this. She and George had listened to her rant about how inappropriate the staffing choice was at length and, while Ron had made encouraging noises in all the right places, neither Ginny nor George had responded other than to quietly leave as soon as they'd been able. Arguing, as they'd both learned, didn't help when Molly Weasley was on a tear.

"She needs to get over it," George had said before he hugged his sister goodbye to go back to the flat above his shop alone.

"Mum thinks McGonagall's gone soft and didn't learn from Dumbledore's mistake with Snape," Ginny said now to Harry. "She thinks she's too trusting."

Harry stiffened at that. It wasn't that he didn't love Molly. She'd been his home and mother figure since he'd been eleven, but he did recognize her weaknesses. He loved McGonagall too, however, and didn't think the professor had any faults at all. "You know," he said, "Now that I'm basically done with Auror training, I'll have more free time this year, and Shacklebolt's been making noises about wanting people to go out and be a presence in the community, do some service things and such."

"Oh?" Ginny began to smirk as she followed his thoughts.

"I'd hate for my dear brother to be overwhelmed by all those eager young athletes," Harry said. "And youth participation in sport is so important, don't you agree?"

"Oh, absolutely," Ginny said. "The lack of a comprehensive physical education program at Hogwarts is a major gap in the curriculum." Harry looked at her and she laughed. "I might be quoting Hermione. She's got plans to overhaul the whole place, I think, not just Defense. There's no arts other than Flitwick's choir, no ethics courses, and the Muggle studies is, and this I am directly quoting, 'so wrong as to be farcical.'"

"Oh Merlin," Harry said. "It's S.P.E.W. all over again." He threw the brush to her and she threw it back.

"What?" she asked. "You do need one."

Harry glowered at her as she laughed. "When are you going up to Hogwarts to help?" he asked her. "So I can join you."


	202. Chapter 202 (Susan's Face is Dirty)

They were laughing downstairs.

Blaise had already noted that the acoustics in Nott Manor were terrible and as a result anything that happened in the room that had become the center of socialization in the place could be heard upstairs. Dinner wasn't for an hour and three of the other residents of the Manor, as well as Theodore's maybe-boyfriend, had gathered and were telling stories of things that had gone awry that day.

Hermione had been approached by a girl who had been clearly trying to make the young quasi-Head uncomfortable by asking about her period. Blaise listened as Theodore asked, in malicious delight, what she'd done. Blaise could almost see the smirk on the face of the woman who was not _nearly_ as straightforward and obvious as he would have expected one of the brash Gryffindors to be as she explained how she'd answered the girl's questions in minute detail.

"I listed off every method to collect the blood currently in use and had started on historical methodology before she muttered it was fine and she had what she needed."

"Did you let her skulk off?" Blaise could hear Draco ask.

Hermione Granger laughed. "When I'd already overheard her tell her friends to watch her make the Death-Eater-lover squirm? Hardly. I made her practice three different clean-up charms until she could do them perfectly, keeping a concerned and serious expression on my face the whole time."

"Merlin, I love you," Theodore said.

They were all friends. More, they were family. They'd all formed some kind of bond the year he'd been off screwing pretty girls in Italy and the friends he'd had - inasmuch as he'd had _friends_ because letting people get close to you was a guarantee of getting hurt - had moved on to Gryffindors and Weasleys. He looked over at the closet where he'd left the bag he'd brought and thought about Giulia and whether her invitation to come stay was still open.

At least, he thought her name was Giulia. Maybe it was Bianca who had suggested he could come and stay at her villa and she could show him the local sights. Blaise squinched up his face and was trying to remember when there was a knock on his door. Before he could answer, the knob turned and Susan Bones stuck her head in.

"You okay?" she asked. "I noticed you were missing from the pre-dinner hijinks."

Blaise looked at her. "You have ink on your mouth," he said.

She pushed the door all the way open at that and walked in without so much as asking his permission and examined her face in the mirror hanging behind one of Nott Manor's endless stuffed armchairs. When she saw the black mark at the side of her lips she began trying to rub it away with her fingers and only succeeded in making the smear worse. "I chew on quills when I'm frustrated at work," she said as she worked at the stain. "No wonder everyone was staring at me today. I kept worrying I had gotten sauce from lunch on my robes or something."

She sounded as if she were about to cry and Blaise could feel himself panicking. His mother used tears as one of the many weapons in her arsenal. Pansy would have sooner swallowed burning coals then let anyone see her break down. He didn't know what to do with someone who was really upset other than to run away, tossing back a cruel rejoinder designed to make them feel worse so they would stay properly away, and he couldn't do that to this sweet, helpless, fumbling mess of a Hufflepuff. He reached in his pocket for a clean handkerchief and muttered, "Come here."

"I've got it," she said, as she managed to get the ink even further up her cheek. How was it possible she had that much ink on her face and hadn't noticed? It was as if the ink were multiplying as she rubbed at it.

"You don't," he said. He used his wand to wet the handkerchief and began dabbing at her mouth and cheek in annoyance. "You're a mess. Don't chew on quills, for Merlin's sake. Just…" He tossed the now black handkerchief onto the bed and summoned another one from a drawer. "I'd try a cleaning charm on your skin but that can be really harsh and…Susan. This is a disaster." He was so focused on getting the absurd - truly absurd - amount of ink off the fool woman's face he didn't notice the way she smiled at him when he turned around to find a _third_ handkerchief or the way she touched her finger to the side of her mouth and left a fresh streak of ink for him to wipe away.

"It's fine," she said as he got up closer and muttered something about how he had a rose based scrub that might work and he'd have the elves send a bit to her because he didn't know why but this ink just wasn't coming off. "No one here will care. You ready to come downstairs?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess."

"Good," she said, and, with a sigh, he gestured for her to precede him out his door and down the corridor and stairs.


	203. Chapter 203 (Wergild? he asked)

"So, what are you doing all day that has you chewing on quills?" Blaise asked as he and Susan joined the rest of the Nott Manor crew. Her face will still a study in smeared ink that made Hermione give her a quizzical look she brushed off with a wave of her hand.

"Working at the Ministry," Susan said. "I'm clerking for the Wizengamot."

"Why?" Blaise asked. The idea that anyone with any wit to them would consider such a ridiculous undertaking struck the arrogant boy as beyond absurd. "Isn't that little more than filing briefs and fetching tea?"

"It's a bit more that that," Percy said stiffly. "It's a very prestigious and sought after post by people who want to achieve at the highest levels of government." He was right. Clerks begged for the opportunity to fetch and file and he resented his family hadn't been connected enough for him to try his hand at that form of networking.

"Fine, it's fancy and shite. She's ambitious," Blaise said, though it didn't sound as though he'd been converted to the wonders of the government job Susan had. "You're all ambitious little geese except for me, and that's great, but I still don't get how she ends up chewing on quills."

"I'm not really that ambitious," Theodore said. "We can be the lazy geese who don't migrate together."

"It was a frustrating day," Susan said to Blaise. "Someone actually cited Hammurabi's Code _in_ bloody Akkadian as a response to my latest report on the compassionate release program. I spent four hours going through cunieform script dictionaries to get to what was really a very snotty response." She took a drink from the glass of sparkling water an elf had handed her. "Are we really using laws almost four thousand years old to inform our policies? Really?"

"I'm going to guess the answer to that question is yes?" Draco asked.

"What did it translate to?" Hermione asked.

"'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. No.'," Susan said. "The 'no' was in English. I understand the idea of lex talionis, and I know everyone is still angry, but these people are dying." She let out an incoherent sound of frustration. "Why not just use wergild. I mean, at least it's British _and_ ti would be bloody well _modern_ compared to _ancient-fucking-Babylonia_."

"I'm having trouble keeping up," Blaise said. "What the fuck are you trying to do?"

"Get Theodore's father released from Azkaban," Draco said. "She wants them to set up a system where prisoners get medical care and go to hospital and things like that." He looked down at his own glass. "Thoros is dying in that place and the Ministry has stonewalled every attempt to get him sent to St. Mungo's."

Blaise looked at Percy who shrugged and sighed. "I"m sitting in a room," Blaise said very slowly, "With a Malfoy, a war heroine who's best friends with Potter, and an actual bona fide Ministry policy wonk, and the best you people could come up with was _clerking_?" He looked at Draco. "I know you're a bit of a wanker, Draco, but I didn't think you were an _idiot_."

"We have tried other things," Hermione said. Her back was up and she was pursing her lips in a way that suggested she was working very hard to not tell Blaise off. "I asked that they release the man to medical care. Harry asked. Neville asked. Draco pulled every lever he has access to. Nothing worked. We're at a bit of an impasse, so if you have any _useful_ suggestions we'd be happy to hear them, but just calling Draco an idiot when you don't know what's been going on is a little unnecessary."

Blaise muttered an apology.

"He's right, though," Percy said. They all spun to look at him and the man sighed and set his drink down. "You've all been trying to just ask but no one can say yes because it would be political suicide. Whoever releases Death Eaters is ending his career. Hell, he'd be burned in effigy in the streets."

"And thus the impasse," Hermione muttered. Theodore just slouched down lower in his seat and kept all expression off his face.

"You need to give them a way to frame it that doesn't sound like they're showing compassion to murderers and rapists," Percy continued. "You can write all the compassionate release memorandums you want and people will just sit on the idea until every Death Eater is dead and then announce the program so that petty thieves don't die in prison." He took a deep breath. "I know you were kidding, but wergild might not be the worst way to go."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - You all are great. You are._**


	204. Chapter 204 (Wergild, she said)

"Wergild," Hermione said later as Draco worked a wide comb through her curls.

"You're dripping," he said as he grabbed at a towel to blot at her hair again. Drying charms did terrible things to her hair and left it pouffy and bushy and unattractive in a way she hated so they were out. Draco sometimes felt her wet hair was his punishment for all those years of mocking her bushy curls. Now she was oversensitive to it and hated the way she looked if her hair was even the tinest bit frizzy.

"Sorry," she muttered. "My hair - "

"Is gorgeous,"Draco said, and dropped a kiss onto her shoulder in silent apology for the way he'd been a prat at thirteen. And fourteen. And fifteen. "Just holds water is all."

He went back to working the knots out of the back of her hair as she sat in front of him, naked but for the towel loosely tucked around her chest, and mused about Percy's suggestions. "Wergild might fly."

"You'll have to enlighten me here," Draco said. "I made noises in the right places while Percy talked, but I don't really have any idea what that is."

"It's… it's the idea that you make restitution via payment," Hermione said. "Each person has a value based on their social rank and if you kill them you have to pay a fee, a literal 'man fee'. It's, well, it's blood money, basically."

"How much would I be worth," Draco teased her. "What's the going rate for pratty fiancés?"

Hermione turned her head back to look at him and he was stunned by how serious her expression was. "Quite a bit," she said. "You're… it was based on rank and there were incredibly specific amounts listed. I don't remember them all - "

"Oh, well, ten points from Gryffindor for not remembering all the details of an outdated legal system without having to look it up," Draco said.

" - but in ninth century Mercia, which was part of what's now England - "

"I do know that much." Draco rolled his eyes. Honestly, who didn't know what Mercia was? Kent. East Anglia. Northumbria. He'd been made to memorize all of the early Anglo-Saxon petty kingdoms and who the important magical families in them were. Genealogy could be a matter of obsession among some purebloods, his mother included.

" - a regular man would be 200 shillings - Muggle money and I can't even begin to adjust for inflation and convert to Galleons so don't ask - and a nobleman 1200. Slaves didn't have a value." She ran her thumb over his mouth. "So take 1200 shillings in the ninth century, figure out what that would be worth over a thousand years later, and convert to Galleons, and there you go. It comes down to I suspect I just can't afford to kill you."

"But you?" He set the comb down and pressed his lips to the side of her mouth. "You're worth a dozen of me so if you can't afford to kill me, well, I surely can't afford to kill you either."

"Mmm," Hermione murmured. "Depends. Do that again."

Draco was happy to drop the discussion of pre-Conquest legal payments and turn his attention to the neck, shoulder, and eventually the curves of the woman he adored. She grabbed up the towel and blotted at her hair as he traced the lines of her breasts with his tongue and by the time he deigned to pay attention to the erect nipples she'd laid down, her curls no longer dripping, and her fingers in his own hair as she tugged him to where she wanted him.

He had his fingers on one nipple and his mouth on another when she said, "Draco, how much do you think the Ministry would weight the modern value of a Muggle? Or Muggle-born? For purposes of updating wergild records?"

He stopped what he was doing and sighed. "I am sure that somewhere in the bowels of records there is already some medieval paperwork, long forgotten, that lays this out."

"Do you think you could find it?" she asked him.

Draco nodded. "Yes," he said. "That's obscure enough and non-political enough that even post-War Malfoy influence should be able to get someone to pull that out for me." He flicked a finger across one nipple. "Do you think we could stop talking about economics and injustice and your scheming ways and go back to the having sex portion of the evening?"

"Well," said Hermione with a smile. "If you insist."

"I insist," Draco said. "I absolutely insist."


	205. Chapter 205 (A Visit to Azkaban)

Susan sat across the table from Thoros Nott, who eyed her with polite disdain. Theodore had fussed and complained and objected and then given in to her insistence she meet his father. "I'm spending my days working toward having the influence to implement a program that would directly benefit him," she'd said. "I think meeting him isn't an unusual thing to want to do."

"I thought you and Percy and Blaise were going to come up with some far more Slytherin approach to this," Theodore had said but her charming smile had worn him down in the way that arguments wouldn't have.

And now they sat here and he watched her study his father.

"Forgive my impertinent curiosity," Thoros said at last, "but to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Miss Bones, I believe the guard said? Madam Bones' niece? I don't believe we've met before."

"We haven't," Susan agreed mildly. "Though it's possible you knew, or least came into contact with, my family."

Thoros quirked a brow upward. "Dead, I assume?" he asked. When Susan nodded he said, "I do hope you haven't come thinking I've repented and regret my choices." He coughed and a gob of bloody spittle landed on table. Susan reached into a pocket and drew out a handkerchief she used to wipe the table clean. "While it is unfortunate the Dark Lord descended into instability - "

"Madness," Theodore muttered.

"Instability," Thoros repeated, "after his resurrection, I still believe in what he - "

"Sold," Theodore interjected again.

"Lived and died for," Thoros said, ignoring his son. "Purebloods are the rightful center of our society and the Ministry's capitulation to so-called modern thinkers like Dumbledore has weakened us all." He coughed again and Susan wiped the table again. "I am, as they say, unregenerate, Miss Bones. You are wasting your time." His smile became the cruel smirk of the Death Eater for just a moment. "Half-blood."

Theodore began to stand, ready to pull Susan from the room, to stammer out an apology, but the woman laid her hands across Thoros Nott's chained ones and said, "I am sorry."

Thoros made what would have been a shrug if he could. "I recommend you leave, Miss Bones. Give up whatever odd little crusade you're on and find a nice boy to marry."

Susan squeezed his hands with her own. "I think I'll stay this course, but thank you for your advice. It would be helpful if you could put together a list of everyone you killed or attacked by name. If you don't know their names, noting whether they were wizard or Muggle would be a start. Destroyed property too, please."

Thoros regarded her with the same dark blue eyes Theodore could see in his mirror. "Your time, Miss Bones, would be more profitably spent elsewhere. Go help war orphans, or do something else with populist appeal such as that. I'm sure I left plenty for you to fuss over."

Susan took a deep breath and Theodore closed his eyes so he didn't have to see the father he loved be the man he hated and the man he feared he himself was. I'll never have a son, he whispered to himself. Our blood is tainted and stained and this line stops with me. Never, ever. No more. Because his eyes were closed he didn't see, only heard, Susan say, "You do make it difficult to like you, don't you?"

"Being sympathetic to half-bloods has never been a concern of mine," Thoros said. "As I said, Miss Bones - "

"Fortunately for you, Mr. Nott, I do not care. You do not get to martyr yourself in my name, and you do not get to suffer in my name, and you most certainly do not get to decide whether I forgive you or not."

Theodore could hear Susan push her chair back and could hear her stand and when he opened his eyes his father was saying, "I don't want your love or forgiveness, Miss Bones."

Susan tipped her head to the side rather like an inquisitive kitten and Theodore wanted nothing so much as to protect her from the beloved, evil man chained to the table in the visiting room. "I have loved, in one way or another, Mr. Nott, any number of people; you might be the least among them. I wish you would rethink your beliefs, of course, but whether you do or not has no bearing. You are a human being and thus deserving of respect and forgiveness." The smile Theodore saw on her face was positively Slytherin. "Even if you don't want it. Even if you can't accord the same to others."

"Loved many people?" Thoros Nott actually sneered now, his composure weakened. "Are you saying you're a whore, Miss Bones?"

"The whore of Hogwarts I believe some students called me," she said agreeably. "Though I think I was a bit more of a hobbyist as I never got paid." She held out her hand to Theodore who took it and prepared to escort her from the room. "It's been a pleasure meeting with you, Mr. Nott. Do put that list of victims together for me, would you?."

Theodore turned before the door shut to cast an agonized glance at his father. "Dad," he said. "Please, for me, do what she asks."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm going to try to find the time to write a fluffy chapter for Valentine's Day about one of the various couples and just interrupt the plot to interject it into the narrative. Let me know which couple you prefer and I'll write up the one most people want._**


	206. Chapter 206

When Draco flooed into the Manor, flowers in hand, something about the main entrance room looked different. He turned around trying to place it. "She's repainted."

Lucius Malfoy stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on his cane. "Not a good day?" Draco asked, seeing the strain.

Lucius just looked around the room. "Complaining doesn't make things better," he said. "Your mother's on a bit of a quest to repaint the entire Manor."

"It's the same colour it was before," Draco said in confusion, though, now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see that tiny chips in the paint where he'd banged toys into the wall as a child were gone, and, though the upholstery was the same, all the furniture looked somehow new.

"Yes," Lucius said. "She said she liked the way this room looked but every chair has been refinished and recovered, every surface repainted. I didn't realize your mother knew quite that many cleaning charms, but she's scoured every inch."

"Mum knows cleaning charms?" Draco let his hand slide over the arm of a chair he'd always used as a boy to hold up one end of a blanket fort. It had been sanded and made perfect with no trace anyone had used it before today.

"Oh, yes. She started with basics like _scourigfy_ and _mundabuntur_ and then moved on to _is glaine_ and _ní salach._ " He gestured to Draco to follow him as he limped from the room and back toward the solarium where Narcissa was waiting. "I didn't even know your mother knew Irish magic, but that's the Blacks for you. Always another layer to them."

"Mum knows Irish cleaning charms?" Draco was still hung up on the idea of his mother cleaning anything. That she was doing it in Irish made the entire thing even stranger.

"And Welsh," Lucius said. " _Nid yw brwnt_. The Welsh don't even use wands for their traditional casting."

Draco flinched as his father's charm swept up dust from what he would have sworn was an immaculate hallway and deposited it in a neat pile at his feet.

"They're a trifle hard to control," Lucius said somewhat apologetically. "The Welsh, I mean."

Draco smiled at that. "I'm getting used to that," he said. "No one's easy to control anymore. Susan's on a mission, Theodore's in love, Pansy keeps threatening to send me Kneazle kittens, and Hermione wants nothing more than to burrow into a library and never come out." He considered their teaching load and sighed. Hermione had insisted on including ethics discussions at every level of Defense and, while he agreed with her in theory, answering questions on what made a spell moral or immoral all day long left him mentally exhausted and her just poking at her research listlessly. Every night she muttered that she'd do it the next day. He eyed his father. "How are you? Really?"

"There are good days and bad days," Lucius said. "Your friend, Miss Patil, is still working on getting her research lab set up. St. Mungo's proved typically accommodating once funding was in place."

"Naturally," Draco said.

"But she's managed to get me some Muggle contraption that uses something called electricity to ease the pain and it's… I have to admit it helps."

Draco tried to remember what electricity was and decided he'd have to ask Hermione. He didn't want to seem like one of the wretched Weasleys, all agog with delight at the clever monkeys that Muggles were with their rubber ducks and their automobiles, but if something was helping his father he wanted to try to understand it, whatever it was.

"Draco," his mother raised a hand toward him as he passed through the doorway into the sun drenched room she sat in. Like everything else he'd passed through, the room was the same yet, now that he knew what he was looking at, wholly new. His mother seemed as languid and delicate as ever but the vision of her casting charms, one after another, in multiple languages, lingered in the back of his head.

"Mum," he said. "You're looking well. Indolence and ease agrees with you." He kissed the back of her hand and handed her the flowers he'd brought. "Maybe some day I can convince you to venture out and join Hermione and me for dinner at Theodore's. His elves are on a cooking rampage and they get horribly offended if you don't eat everything."

Narcissa's smile stiffened into one that was more polite than welcoming.

"Though you might find yourself bored at dinner," Draco continued. "Hermione is busy researching Romanian wandless cleaning charms. One of our students had an old book her mother gave us filled with things I can't pronounce dedicated to getting dirt out of even the most remote crevice." He settled down into a seat across from his mother. "There's a whole chapter I've heard about at length that addresses all sorts of types of contamination. Who knew there was that much interest in getting rid of even the faintest hint that things might have been brushed against by something unsavory?"

Narcissa turned to set the flowers in a vase she'd summoned and filled with water. As she fussed with arranging the stems in a way she found visually pleasing she said, "I would hate to be so rude as to turn down an invitation from my only son. A dinner in the privacy of Nott Manor would be lovely."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good, well, afternoon. I hope the day has treated you well and that Narcissa Malfoy will show up and scour your bathroom with cleaning spells from around the world when you aren't looking (just in case Voldemort used it because that cannot be allowed to stand.)_**

 ** _I apologize for the bad Welsh and bad Irish. Google translate, sigh._**


	207. Chapter 207 (Dinner at the Burrow)

"Mum."

Ron Weasley poked at his stewed cabbage with a fork and tried to think of the best way to say this without sounding disloyal.

"Yes, love?" his mother asked as she passed a platter to George. Sunday dinners had become smaller and smaller. Charlie had disappeared back to his dragon reserve, Slytherin bride in tow, and made it clear he had no intention of setting foot in the Burrow until she would be welcomed. "Not tolerated," he'd said. "Welcomed." Bill came when he was in town, but Fleur was expecting again and she didn't like to travel because, "Eet ees so uncomfortable." Ginny spent most of her time training with the Harpies. Percy seemed to have something to do every Sunday night and though his apologies were always polite enough he seemed to be distancing himself from his family again.

Ron had never really been sympathetic to Percy but he suspected that being told your summer-long special assignment had been a waste of time and that nothing would come of it because Britain was too lenient with Death Eaters and their supporters had probably stung. That meal had been the last one Percy had attended before he'd been always busy.

Ron wanted to mutter, "Stuck up, Ministry-loving prat," out of habit, but his mother's complaints that even the Auror department had gone soft had gotten his own back up. "I talked to Kingsley today," Ron said.

"Oh?" Molly Weasley smiled at her son.

"He told me you'd been in filing complaints about Hogwarts again," Ron said.

"It's a disgrace," Molly said. "The way Minerva just hired that boy. You'd think she'd have learned from Dumbledore's mistakes with Severus not to go trusting Death Eaters."

"Snape turned out to be on our side," George reminded her. "He did die for Harry in the end."

"Well, no one's going to get that lucky twice," Molly said. "I don't see Malfoy dying for anyone any time soon."

"Fortunately we aren't at war anymore," Ron said. "No one else needs to die." He set his fork down and sighed. "Mum, look, I'm no fan of Malfoy. The rotter could fall off the face of the earth and I'd consider it something to celebrate. But you can't just keep coming into the Minstry filing complaint after complaint." His mother glared at him. "You look _touched,_ Mum. They're all just throwing away the forms you fill out as soon as you leave. No one who isn't obsessed thinks Draco Malfoy is out to convert all of Hogwarts into the newest army of Dark magicians."

George repressed a snicker at that idea, but not well enough, and Molly turned her expression to him. "He's just a dumb coward," George said. "Honestly, Mum, no one else wants the job. Even you hated it, really. Just go on holiday with Dad or something and let it go."

"I can't," Molly said. She opened her mouth as though she were going to go on one of her wholly predictable tirades about how her son had died and people had suffered and no one seemed to care. She wasn't going to forgive these people. Not now. Not ever. Murderers deserved to suffer and so did the people who'd stood by and let them commit their crimes. Good people, she'd said before, should take pleasure in knowing these monsters were paying for their crimes in the worst way possible. If she could, she'd said, she'd go to Azkaban just to watch them and know they felt pain even if it could never compare to hers.

"Well," Arthur said, cutting her off before she could get started, "You're going to have to for a bit, Molly-wobbles, because I've planned a holiday to France. A second honeymoon." Molly looked like she was going to argue but Arthur said, "I know you wanted to get some things for Fleur, and I'm sure she'd be delighted if you found things that reminded her of where she grew up." He put a wheedling tone in his voice. "We've saved for years, Molls, and now the kids are all out of the house and we've both got time. Let's go see if that Hogwarts French we both studied is still any good."

Ron mouthed, 'They studied French at Hogwarts?' to George who shrugged. Neither of their parents had ever given any indication of any hint of being bilingual so it seemed doubtful. The possibility, however,that this was some parental code for sex was just too horrifying to consider.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thanks, as always, to Shayalonnie, who alpha reads everything._**


	208. Chapter 208 (Percy and Theo Talk)

"First, worst, and best," Percy said. Theo laughed and reached down for the comforter and pulled it to his waist; September nights could get cool and they'd left the window open.

"You really want to know?" he asked.

Percy splayed his hand with its immaculately trimmed nails over Theo's stomach and let his fingers toy with the hairs leading down under the blanket. "I want to know everything," he said.

Theo made a melodramatic groan and said, "First was Smith."

"Zacharias?" Percy asked, "The one in Hufflepuff?" He remembered the boy as one who'd gotten on his nerves when he'd been in a position of authority at Hogwarts. He'd been the sort to think it was clever to demand explanations from prefects for everything, even as he'd walked around with his shirt untucked while he should have been in class. "That's… I wouldn't have expected that."

"He's got hidden depths, our Smith," Theo said. At Percy's raised brow he said, "Or so I told myself at the time. It ended about as badly as one could expect." He looked over and out the open window. "The only saving grace was that he was so closeted - or maybe just straight - he kept the whole, embarrassing thing to himself." He slid his fingers into Percy's. "You?"

"A boy in Ravenclaw, a seventh year to my fifth," Percy said. "When Penelope and I broke up she told me to go and experiment." Theo propped himself on his side so he could see the smile at that memory pulled up the corners of Percy's mouth. "You know what Ravenclaws are like," Percy added. "'Just experiment, Perce, then you'll know and you won't be so unsure.' So I followed her advice and I couldn't lie to myself anymore."

"She sounds great," Theo said, a trifle wistfully. He'd done his best to keep his liaison with Smith a secret from everyone but Draco, though he suspected Blaise and Pansy knew too. They'd just allowed him privacy instead of being open about the whole thing.

"She is," Percy said. At Theo's faltering smile the man let go of his hand and poked him. "She lives in Wales with her Muggle girlfriend now; they raise Pygmy goats on some Merlin-forsaken farm." He poked Theo again. "We did have a bit in common."

"Worst?" Theo asked.

Percy sighed and sank back into the pillow. "When I was at the Ministry and estranged from everyone who mattered because of the war I had, well, I don't want to call it a relationship, but a thing with someone." He took Theo's hand again. "I think now he'd been assigned to spy on me."

"Ouch," Theo said.

"Needless to say, it didn't last."

There was a pause then Theo offered, "My worst was a Muggle. I went into a bar I'd heard about in London and let myself be picked up. It was… it was not good."

"That sounds awful."

"It was." Theo thought back to the encounter. The Muggle had been nice enough he supposed, though obviously willing to pretend the schoolboy might be of age, and their furtive coupling in the alley behind the bar had depressed him. He'd learned what condoms were, that magic was wonderful if for no other reason that it rendered them unnecessary, and that he never wanted to pretend to be something other than what he was again. Hiding his magic had felt like a lie the whole night. He'd gone back to Hogwarts and told Draco he was gay, told him about Smith, told him everything.

Draco's sole response had been, "Daphne's little sister is going to be so disappointed. She's had a secret crush on you for ages."

"Isn't she ten?" Theo had demanded.

"Thirteen, I think," Draco had said.

He'd laughed and been relieved that his best friend hadn't cared at all. It hadn't been the reception he'd expected, and hadn't been the one he'd gotten from everyone. His father had been another unexpected source of acceptance.

"Do you want to come to Azkaban next time I go?" Theo asked Percy. "Meet my dad? He's… I mean, he's a Death Eater. He really is. He's not even pretending he doesn't believe in blood purity. He was an utter arse to Susan, and the whole visit is likely to be awful because you're - "

He stopped talking.

"A man?" Percy guessed.

Theo shook his head. "Oddly, no. He doesn't care about that, but your family, they - "

"Blood traitors?" Percy began to laugh. "I think I can handle that," he said. "Not the worst thing I've ever been accused of." He nudged Theo with his knee. "Want to risk dinner with my family? I can promise you my mum will make your dad look like a delightful conversationalist."

"You're willing to take me home?" Theo tried to keep his voice from shaking at that.

"You aren't my dirty little secret," Percy said. "I just haven't wanted to subject you to what is sure to be an unpleasant evening."

"I had your mother in class," Theo said. "Yeah, I… I'd love that." He tried to leaven the mood. "You didn't tell me your best."

Percy's broad smile took him by surprise. It lit the room. It would have shone light into the darkest corner. "You," he said. "The best is you."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy Valentine's Day! Percy/Theo received twice as many 'votes' as the runner up (Blaise/Susan and Dramione in a near tie) so I present to you: Thercy._**

 ** _Thank you to the amazing and wonderful and kind Orlando Switch, who beta read this for me on very short notice._**


	209. Chapter 209 (Food Issues)

Hermione pushed the kidney pie around on her plate and thought wistfully about the Nott elves. She wasn't sure if they were just better cooks or if cooking meals for hundreds of students just inevitably resulted in less than stellar results but dinner wasn't good. She'd eaten the rotating Hogwarts meals for far too long. After that year of going hungry she hadn't thought she'd ever turn her nose up at hot, nourishing food - especially hot, nourishing food she didn't have to find, prepare, and argue with Ron about - but not even two weeks into the school year and she was already tired of the Hogwarts dinner specials.

She needed to get Draco to take her out to dinner. He was off, the blighter, running half of his new crop of ducklings through basic broom skills. He'd divided the endless reams of interested students into two groups and seemed to spend most of his time in the air or cornered by one cluster of kids after another who wanted to gush about what they'd done, what he'd shown them. They wanted to talk about their classes and their parents. They showed up in his office just to draw on the chalkboard.

He was popular.

She, Hermione couldn't help but notice, was not. No one hated her, but no one flocked to her side to ask her questions about boys and makeup and Quidditch.

That was sigh worthy and, as she pushed another mouthful of the bland dinner into her mouth and washed it down with a sip of the table wine, she did, indeed, sigh.

"Already bogged down with grading?" Aurora Sinistra asked her and Hermione forced a smile to her face as she turned to engage the Astronomy professor in a conversation about how her first year Aurora had gone overboard and assigned far too much work. "They just rush through it, you know, dear. All they really care about at this age is boys and brooms." Aurora patted her hand. "You'll get the hang of it."

Hermione's smile became even more strained.

By the time dinner was over she wanted a shot of Draught of Peace, a hot bath, and to bury herself in a book on the wandless charms of Greece, but instead she grimly looked over the Gryffindor table to remind herself who she wanted to keep an eye on. There was a fourth year boy who had fantasies he was George Weasley come again and kept having to be fished out of mischief; he didn't have the Weasley knack of staying out of sight and always having some plausible way to deny what he'd been up to. There was the fifth year girl who'd already cried about O.W.L.s and how she'd never pass them and would end up begging on the street because she wasn't good for anything. There was the first year, Azusa, who _again_ hadn't eaten very much at dinner. It looked like she'd just had the salad, without dressing. Visions of Padma, wrapped in her oversized jumpers and huddling by heat sources, superimposed themselves on the little Gryffindor who was gathering her things and leaving the Dining Hall.

"Excuse me," Hermione murmured to Aurora. "I need to go talk to one of my students about something."

"Don't get too involved," Aurora said. "You aren't their mother, dear, or their friend."

Hermione considered how many people had managed not to notice Harry's struggles at school, or Draco's for that matter, and her smile became so pinched it was barely a smile at all. "I'll keep that in mind," she said.

She joined Azusa in the corridor. "I'm heading up to Gryffindor," she said to the girl. "Mind if I walk with you?"

The girl shook her head but also dropped her chin, kept her eyes on the floor, and didn't seem inclined to talk. Hermione walked alongside her and tried to find a way to ask why she didn't seem to be eating. Maybe she should bring Padma in and have her meet with the girl. Or Madam Pomfrey?

She dismissed that idea immediately.

"I'm a bit tired of the dinners," she said. "Do you not like kidney pie either?"

The girl mumbled something Hermione couldn't quite hear. She stopped walking and, clearly miserable, the girl stopped too and repeated herself. "I just can't eat it," she said.

"Why?" Hermione asked. She knew it wasn't _great_ cooking, but so far she'd seen the girl refuse to eat almost every dinner, subsisting on salad and vegetables.

"I don't know if the meat's halal," the girl said. She still wasn't looking up and she sounded embarrassed. "Don't tell anyone," she said, pleaded really. "It's already… my schedule worked out so I never need to leave class to pray, but I don't want people to think I'm some kind of freak."

Hermione quickly ran 'halal' through her brain, remembered what it was, felt relieved, and let out a giant sigh the girl misinterpreted. Azusa's jaw tightened and her shoulder's braced and Hermione could see her getting ready to defend herself. "We just need to get you halal meat," she said, cutting the girl off before she started. She wasn't starving herself, she wasn't in any kind of emotional crisis. She just needed to know she could eat the food. This was an easy fix, especially compared to what she'd been afraid of. "This is easy," she said.

Azusa slumped. "I'm so sick of salad," she admitted. "Lunch is easier because there's more options but dinner is always meat and I don't even know what's in the salad dressing."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hermione asked her as she steered the girl from their path to Gryffindor Tower down toward the kitchens. The elves still despised her - even more now that the Nott elves were free - but she was betting they'd take a culinary challenge like this in stride. They made kosher food for Sari, after all.

"It's just… it's weird being the only Muslim here," Azusa said. She shrugged. "I didn't want to be a bother."

That didn't sound wholly right to Hermione but she didn't push. She'd get the girl eating again and then try to figure out what else, if anything, was going on.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Many thanks to maiamorgernstern and hafsa01 who answered questions about being an 11-year-old Muslim girl at a British boarding school. maiamorgernstern also graciously beta read this for me and sent me a time table of prayers though I am shamelessly cheating and pretending that McGonagall worked out the schedules for the year so prayer times could be seamlessly fit in during breaks between classes and free periods. As always, any mistakes are my fault._**


	210. Chapter 210 (Narcissa at Dinner, 1 of 2)

Narcissa Malfoy had watched her mother burn Andromeda Black's name from the family tapestry. There were standards. There were things you just did not do. You were polite to your elders. You ate all your vegetables whether you liked them or not. You didn't speak to Mudbloods.

In a rare fit of liberal feeling brought on by too many glasses of fire whiskey, her mother had once admitted that it wasn't as if it the poor creatures were to blame for their inferiority, and, certainly, if one accosted you in public you should be polite. It wasn't like it was in her grandmother's day when decent women wouldn't even go into a shop staffed by such a person. No, it was acceptable to _speak_ to them, she supposed, in certain, rigorously controlled, situations where their inferiority was plain.

Girls weren't as bad, of course. Loose, usually, but that was to be expected. Just don't make friends with them or share notes in school and if, by some awful chance, one was in your room at Hogwarts don't ever let her encroach.

Boys, well, the less said about Muggle-born boys the better. They were practically animals, oversexed and out of control. Never _ever_ let yourself be alone with one. If one of them _hurt_ you, hurt said in careful tones that made it very clear what unspeakable thing was meant, let mama know because that boy would be taken care of so he never hurt another witch again.

When Andromeda had told her about Ted Tonks, Narcissa had assumed he'd hurt her and she was ashamed. It had taken her months to understand her sister fancied herself in love with the boy, and, worse, that she stole off to meet him because she thought he loved her back.

Narcissa wasn't even sure Mudbloods were capable of feelings like that. Maybe he loved her the way a dog might love its owner, or the way a Kneazle could latch on to a person, but he didn't _love_ her. Not the way Rodolphus loved Bella. Not the way Lucius loved her. She'd pulled Bella aside and confided her concerns about their sister and Bella had been shocked.

Not much had shocked Bella, even then, but that Andromeda would sully herself with filth did.

Bella had gone to their mother and, one confrontation that started out as concerned and escalated to screaming later, Andromeda had been thrown bodily from the house as she sobbed that they didn't understand, Ted wasn't _like that._ Ted was _different_. She'd pounded on the door hard enough they'd found blood smeared on it the following day, but at some point she'd stopped and gotten the rigorous control of herself that Black women were known for and said, in a voice like ice, that if that was how they felt then she rejected them. She'd never speak to them again.

She hadn't, either. She'd gotten married, had a daughter, had a grandchild, lost the husband and child to war, and she'd never unbent. Narcissa had sent condolences after the war but the owl had return, missive still strapped to its leg.

It had been more effort than Narcissa Malfoy felt her disowned sister with the werewolf son-in-law had deserved. Remus Lupin was proof, she felt, that you deviated from the path for one person, one person who seemed perfectly nice and who didn't invite nightmares into your life where they took up residence in your parlour and threatened your son, then that threw the door wide open. First a Muggle-born spouse, then a werewolf, both dead. This was why you didn't deviate. You followed the rules and you did what was right and you kept a clean house and an immaculate life and everything would be fine. Your son would be fine.

Unless, of course, he decided he was going to run off with a Muggle-born too.

Narcissa Malfoy stood outside the ever-gracious Nott Manor and raised her hand to knock on the door. Dinner _in private_ where no one could see surely counted as acceptable, even by rigorous Black standards. She'd meet her son and his... friend... for dinner, surrounded by his other, far more acceptable, friends. She'd be polite and civil and perhaps the girl would loan her this book on Romanian cleaning charms she seemed to have come into possession of. Getting Malfoy Manor properly clean after the war was a task Narcissa did not intend to shirk.

She knocked on the door and a house elf opened it.

"You is late," the elf said, looking Narcissa up and down with disdain that slowly turned to approval. "But you is dressed well so it is fine."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, lovliest readers!_**


	211. Chapter 211 (Narcissa at Dinner: 2 of 2)

"This looks lovely," Narcissa said as she found herself gathered with a group of recent Hogwarts graduates on the pack porch of Nott Manor. The elf had led her through the house and left here here with all these young adults. Her mother would never have tolerated an elf that rude; her Aunt Walburga would have mounted the wretched thing's head on a plaque. "You've kept the place up beautifully, Theodore. The gardens are especially nice."

Draco watched his mother with a strained smile on his face. She hadn't said or done anything _wrong_ , exactly, but neither had she been warm. She was being polite. She was being a Black. He tried to tell himself that coming over and dining with Hermione was progress, and it was, albeit of the smallest sort, but her coolness still hurt. She was his mother. He loved her. He wanted her to accept that he was more than the boy he'd been at fifteen, more than the family she'd come from, more than a mindset that had allowed a monster to grow in their midst.

He, of course, was too much of a coward to push the issue.

"And Blaise," his mother continued, turning her social charm on the newest arrival, "what a delightful surprise to see you back in England. I trust your mother is well?"

"She always is," Blaise said with just the slightest tightening of his grip on his water glass. "I think Elora Zabini is a force of nature, rather like a gale or one of those tornados. Nothing can stand in her path."

"That is what pureblood witches are like," Narcissa agreed.

Draco flinched as his eyes shot, almost involuntarily, to Susan and Hermione.

"I think that's true of any woman, really," Blaise said in his seemingly indifferent drawl. He set a hand on Susan's shoulder. "Susan here is no pureblood, but I would feel somewhat sorry for anyone who got between her and anything in which she had become interested." He took a sip of his water. "Not that sorry, though, because anyone who opposed her would be a fool and it's hard to muster sympathy for such."

Susan smiled at him, a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Well, what is the saying about hard work?" she asked.

"That trickery is better?" he responded.

Hermione snorted. "We're trapped with a bunch of snakes," she said to Susan. "All of them take pleasure in being underhanded just for its own sake."

"You have something against Slytherin?" Narcissa asked.

"Of course not," Hermione said, her eyes wide. Theodore and Draco exchanged a glance Narcissa, focused on the Muggle-born witch, missed. "There have been so many exemplary Slytherins, not even counting the ones in this room. Severus Snape, a hero in the end, Merlin, of course. Even your own sister, Andromeda Tonks. I haven't seen her, or Teddy, in a bit. Isn't he the sweetest, however?"

She took a sip of her own water and added, her eyes never leaving Narcissa's face, "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. You're still estranged from your sister, aren't you. Draco, go get my bag. I think I have a photograph in there that Harry gave me. Harry is little Teddy's godfather, you know."

"That's not necessary," Narcissa said. "Don't trouble yourself, dearest."

"He's a lovely boy," Hermione continued on. "Takes after his father in many ways but seems to be a metamorphagus like his mother. Sticky, of course." She shrugged. "I''d be happy to show you the photograph. If, however, you prefer to not have family, I certainly can't stop you."

The words hung there.

Susan tried to fill the space. "How's your husband doing, Mrs. Malfoy? I understand Padma has some new treatments she is trying that use Muggle pain control techniques."

"Lucius has good days and bad days," Narcissa said. "Today is one of the bad days, I'm afraid." It was her turn for her fingers to tighten around the stem of her glass.

Draco watched her and realized she'd had no idea the new treatments the young and innovative Healer Lucius was funding was using Muggle techniques. How'd you like _them_ apples, he thought crudely to himself.

"Miss Patil seems to be a very clever witch," Narcissa said. "I understand she's a good friend of yours, Draco?"

"Yes," he said as blandly as he could. "All of us who returned for our eighth year - "

"And Ginny," Hermione added.

"And Ginny," Draco agreed, "ended up very close. We've shared certain experiences I wouldn't wish on anyone, but they do make for a close bond after the fact."

"Harry too," Theodore said. "You two are especially close."

Draco gritted his teeth. "Yes," he said. "So very close."

Susan tried to defuse the escalating tension. "It's great that Padma is able to help your husband," she said to Narcissa. "I would never have thought to use Muggle medicines but she's just brilliant in the way she finds ways to meld the different schools of thought."

"Yes," Narcissa said, her jaw increasingly tight. "We're very lucky to have her, I suppose. I've very grateful that Lucius is getting relief."

"However it comes about?" Draco asked.

His mother looked at him and for a long moment he thought she was going to set her drink down and leave. At last, though, she said, "Of course. The means are irrelevant; only the results matter."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning!_**


	212. Chapter 212 (Aftermath of the Dinner)

"Well, that was awful," Blaise said after Narcissa left. "Is she always a fucking bitch to Hermione or was tonight special?"

Draco rubbed at his arm uncomfortably. "No," he said, "She's pretty much always like that." He turned to Hermione, who had been trying to clear dishes, much to the annoyance of a house elf. "You okay?" he asked.

She eyed the way he was rubbing his arm. "I'm fine," she said. Blaise wasn't sure he believed her. Something about the set of her jaw and the way she clipped her words hinted that she'd wanted to slap Narcissa's face. "She's a bit…," Hermione began before she sighed. "Molly's worse, so it's not like I'm not used to it."

"Right," Draco said. He forced his hand down into his pocket. "I could use a drink after that."

Theodore rubbed at his face. "Me too," he muttered.

The reaction to his confession was immediate and unanimous. "No," Draco and Hermione said at the same time.

"Theodore," Susan said, "Don't let that awful woman - sorry Draco, but she was awful - do that. She's nothing."

He looked at them, looked at Blaise, then sighed. "I'm not going to have one," he said, "but I know you downed some Draught of Peace when you excused yourself to use the toilet, Hermione, so don't go all no-coping-mechanism-for-you on me."

"It's just," Hermione began.

"You don't drink," Draco said, "and I won't cut. Deal?"

Blaise looked at Draco, the way he'd rubbed at his arm suddenly clear. He couldn't bear the intensity of the emotional currents swirling around the room. Had anyone not been broken by the war? "You people are a mess," he said. "One a drunk, one a nervous wreck, one slicing himself to bits." He turned to Susan. "What's your post war poison? Based on your wardrobe, I'm guessing it's not compulsive shopping."

Hermione stiffened and Blaise had that sudden realization he'd gone too far and wanted to flee back to his room, back to Italy, back to mindless girls with their long legs and high heels, but it was too late.

"I had sex," Susan said before Hermione could open her mouth. "Lots and lots of sex."

Blaise goggled at her, the looked at Theodore for confirmation.

"Well, not with me," Theodore said. "She's got the wrong genitalia."

"Or me," Draco hastened to add.

"I…." Blaise, gobsmacked, stumbled for something to say. He studied Susan as if trying to see her as a femme fatale and his eyes tracked from the low heeled shoes he thought dreadful, up along curves that has never graced any model, to the carefully neutral face. "But you're so... You're so great," he said at last. "Why would you do that?"

"It made me feel loved," she said simply. "It made me feel less dead inside."

"But you could have gotten hurt," Blaise said, his voice rising as he considered the naive woman in front of him going off with partner after partner. It only would have taken one for him to need to be considering how to get away with revenge. "Men are pigs, Susan, absolute and utter... trust me on this, because I know. _I'm_ a pig! Someone could have hurt you!"

He wanted to shake her.

He looked over at Theodore for support but the man was eyeing him with a very peculiar expression on his face. Blaise let out an annoyed huff and glanced at Draco, who wore the exact same look. Hermione was studying her hideous shoes and Blaise spared a moment to wonder how they'd escaped the purge of her clothing before he glared back at Susan. "What were you thinking?" he asked in exasperation.

"That it worked," she said.

"You need to take up shopping instead," Blaise muttered. "Tomorrow. It's as if you've never even seen a fashion magazine. You are her both." He waved a hand at Hermione in disgust. "I'll take you to London and we'll… it won't be as good as Italy, of course, but we'll do what we can. You need better robes, something that fits properly and isn't so dowdy."

Susan seemed to waver between being offended and amused.

"This is good idea," the elf still fussing with the dishes said. "Neither of them can dress and it is painful. Take them both."


	213. Chapter 213 (Sari & Azusa)

"So, the good thing is, it's on a Saturday this year," Sari said as she tossed an apple across the table to Azusa, who caught it and took a bite. "That means the whole weird thing about how I don't go to class isn't as obvious." She pulled another apple out of her bag and took a bite. There were apple orchards at Nott Manor and the yield was proving to be more than Theodore, even with seven elves plus Kreacher, could handle. He'd given apples to Harry and Ginny, had apples delivered to Pansy, sent apples into school with all of Draco's ducklings. He'd tried to convince Hermione that a field trip to pick apples was just the thing because you never knew what evils lurked in the hearts of fruit.

She'd told him to just hire people like a normal gentleman farmer but that didn't keep her office from being filled with baskets of the things.

"Do people give you a hard time?" Azusa asked.

Sari shrugged. "No one has," she said, "other than a couple of jerks saying it was unfair. Having Hermi… Professor Granger on my side helped a lot. She and Dra… Professor Malfoy made sure the Headmistress knew what I needed and it was never a problem after she knew."

"Plus the food is _great_ ," Andy said, reaching down into her bag to take an apple for himself. "You're going to do a Seder again this year, right? And I can go, right?"

Sari sighed. "Yes, Andy, we can do a kind-of-Seder again this year, though I think you might be the only person I've ever met who actually kept eating more and more of the horseradish. That's supposed to be bitter, not the thing you like."

"More for me," he said. "You're coming, right?" he asked Azusa. "It's great."

"Is that this Saturday?" Azusa asked.

Sari snorted. "Hardly," she said. "It's Rosh Hoshana. It's joy and wishes and all, but the main food is apples, or apple-raisin challah, and I'm getting a little sick of apples."

"Bummer," Andy said. "Can I have another one?"

"Merlin," Sari said. "Do you ever stop eating?" He gave her a wounded look, took an apple, and bounded away. "Boys," she muttered in disgust before wrinkling her nose and poking a quill at parchment that remained stubbornly blank instead of filling up with an essay. "You'd think in magic school the essays would write themselves," she said. "And whenever I complain my mum just says things about the importance of learning and the value of the life of a scholar and on and on and on."

Azusa laughed. "'The seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim'," she said in a high pitched voice that mimicked her grandmother. "I get it too." Both girls exchanged looks filled with mutual exasperation at the endless lectures from adults who talked about school but who had never had to get a hedgehog to agree to be a pincushion.

Hedgehogs had opinions on the matter.

"Where do you go for prayer," Azusa asked. "I mean, do you just try to do it in your dorm room."

"No!" Sari made another face. "Can you imagine? Trying to pray while your roommate applies eye makeup badly and another keeps interrupting you to ask if you had those notes for her to borrow. That would be awful."

"Yeah," Azusa muttered looking down. "Awful."

Sari wrote a few sentences, looked up, then looked down and wrote a few more. The common room was filled with the quiet sounds of scratching quills and turning pages as people studied, with the occasional yelp from the corner where a radio was tuned to a Quidditch match. "I got permission to use an old room," she said after a bit. "It's pretty small, but Andy and Trista helped me clean it out. I didn't decorate or anything. I mean, if you wanted to use it, you could."

Azusa kept her eyes on her own homework. "I don't want to be a bother," she said.

"You aren't," Sari said. "You wouldn't be. It's just one more person to help keep the dust under control, really. It'd be a help because I don't use it that often so, when I do, it's sometimes pretty bad."

Azusa said, "Can you show me where it is?"

"Sure," said Sari. "It's on the seventh floor across from this weird tapestry of trolls in a ballet class."

"Trolls?" Azusa started to giggle.

"Right?" said Sari. "Come on, I'll take you there."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Many thanks to maiamorgernstern who beta read this for me._**

 ** _Dating note: In 1999, Rosh Hoshana was on September 11._**

 ** _As always, any mistakes are my fault._**


	214. Chapter 214 (Class Field Trip: 1 of 3)

Hermione sat cross-legged on the top of her desk. "That's not true," she said. "Inferi have to be animated by the will of the Dark magician, so if he's no longer alive - "

"But he set that lake up _before_ he was killed the first time - "

"He wasn't technically dead," Hermione interjected.

"Fair point, but he was pretty insubstantial at that point. Nearly dead, even. I doubt he had the will to spare to animate a corpse so if they stayed mobile, which general consensus is they did because they were still there when he came back, they don't need the Dark wizard to power them once they've been turned on, so to speak. Sure, everyone _thought_ he was dead - "

"I think a lot of things that aren't so."

"So true," Draco said to a round of laughter from the sixth and seventh year students. The advanced classes had all been merged into one section that now met for a double period. The discussions had inevitably lasted past the bell and when half the students wouldn't leave because they were hip-deep in debating whether situational ethics had any bearing on the issue at hand it became simply pragmatic to extend the lesson. Today's argument on Inferi followed the usual pattern. Students arrived having done the reading on the topic - or being prepared to fake it - and after a brief summary of the basic facts Hermione or Draco opened the floor for debate.

The year had started with predictable, stiff assertions that all Dark magic was evil. Repeated pushing to define evil, and Dark, had garnered first comments surely meant to be obnoxious, which had then spawned lively debates. If you could float a person off a cliff and drop them to their death, did that make the spell Dark, you a Dark magician, or you just a murderer? If a werewolf had no control over his actions while transformed, was he morally culpable? If a potion existed that gave a werewolf control, was society morally obligated to provide it to him or her free of charge. If you opted to _not_ give the werewolf the potion, were you morally responsible for anything he did while transformed?

Draco and Hermione had radically different viewpoints on whether werewolves were inherently evil. The class had listened in rapt silence as they'd lost all pretense at professionalism and screamed at one another until a girl asked, her voice hesitant, was the problem that they had known such radically different werewolves that they couldn't be objective. "I mean," she'd stammered, "Remus Lupis was a hero even though he… and it seems like Greyback would have been a monster even if _hadn't_ been a, uh - "

"Werewolf. A filthy, disgusting, werewolf," Draco had said, nearly spitting the words out. "I'll grant you Lupin, fine, but he was an aberration."

No conclusions had been reached that day other than that class needed to be longer and that Defense was the absolute best class at school.

Today's argument was far more civil. Were Inferi effectively immortal, carrying on their mindless tasks after the fall of the Dark wizard who animated them, or were they like puppets whose strings had been cut. Were Voldemort's Inferi still out there? And even if they weren't, well, alive was the wrong word but _animated_ , didn't they deserve a decent burial?

"They were victims," a girl asserted. "We should find them, if they are still, uh, moving, make that stop, and lay them to rest."

Hermione looked uncomfortably at Draco who didn't make eye contact. "I never battled an actual Inferi," she hedged. "Harry did. Maybe he could come and talk - "

"We talk _all the time_ ," a boy interrupted her. "We should do this. It's like a…practical. A practical application. We study ways to subdue them if necessary and we go to that lake place where Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore went and we take care of it."

The class excitement level rose. "This seems like a very bad idea," Hermione said, "and it is _not_ mandatory, do you understand? No one _has_ to come. And no one may who didn't get _at least_ an E on his or her O.W.L.s"

The class cheered.

Draco buried his face in his hands. "Are we really doing this?" he muttered. "This is such a bad idea."

"I'll put in the request for a field trip with Headmistress McGonagall," Hermione said. "And we'll get some Aurors to come with us." She sighed. "Harry'll do it, I'm sure."

"Great," Draco said. "Inferi hunting with Potter. Won't that be fun?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - hello, loveliest readers!_**


	215. Chapter 215 (Harry Comes Over)

"You want to do what?" Harry asked. He'd handed Hermione a bottle of wine as a pro-forma hostess gift and they'd settled onto the back porch, their chair scraping against the stone floor, as she poured it out. "That's bloody stupid."

"Says the man who went into the cave totally unprepared," Hermione countered. "We go in with a class full of people trained specifically in spells designed to counter Inferi just in case they're still active, an Auror - "

"Meaning me."

"Meaning you, exactly. There will probably be nothing but a lake full of rotted bodies we can levitate out and give a decent burial to, and if there are active Inferi, well, we can't just _leave_ them there. They need to be laid to rest."

Harry took an impolite gulp of the wine and sputtered a bit as a he swallowed it wrong. The setting sun reflected against his glasses and gave a warm glow to his dark hair. "They're a nightmare, Hermione."

"I know," she said.

"No," Harry said, "you don't."

He took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to dissuade her, as if it had ever been possible to turn her aside once she'd set her mind to something. Before he could speak, however, she said, "Minerva has already given permission so we're going whether you come along or not but, as you're the only living person with experience in that cave - well, you and Kreacher and I'll not ask him to face that again - "

"But it's just fine to ask me," Harry muttered.

She ignored him. " - I thought you might want to come along and lend your expertise. I'm sure the students would be happy to get to work alongside you, you might inspire a few of them to apply to the Auror program, but I don't want to pressure you into anything." She took a sip of her wine. "You do what you think is best."

Harry swore at her because they both knew he'd go. "I'd better get hazard pay at work," he said. "Merlin, you're a pain, Hermione." He looked out over the rolling lawn Theodore called his back yard and squinted into the light. "Who's out there flying?"

"Draco and Andy," Hermione said. "I swear, I think that kid sneaks into the floo behind us at least every other night and Draco and I sneak him back in the morning. He got so used to being here over the summer, now we can't get him to leave." She shook her head with what was probably supposed to look like exasperation but was obviously amusement. "You know what itty bitty Gryffidors are like."

Harry laughed. "It's pretty nice, isn't it? Seeing the place filled with kids who sneak off to fly instead of to do battle with evil?"

Hermione grinned at him before shading her eyes so she could watch the pair dart and zoom against the skyline. "I think in our third year we were doing battle with Draco Malfoy."

"Like I said," Harry said. "Forces of evil."

Blaise, who had been trying to pretend he wasn't eavesdropping from where he sat with a book, let out a smothered snicker. Harry looked over at him and narrowed his eyes but before he could say anything the forces of evil in question landed on the porch and tossed a Snitch at Harry. "Care for a one-on-one match?" he asked. "Or are you too pissed to keep up."

Harry glanced at the glass of wine in his hand and snorted. "Half a glass? I could fly circles around you after half a bottle."

"Prove it."

And with that Harry grabbed the broomGinny held out with a sigh and both men - boys - took off into the air. "I feel as if we shouldn't encourage them," Hermione said as Andy landed with a thud.

"Is there anything to eat?" he demanded.

"You're the one who left a perfectly good shepherd's pie to follow us into a floo," she said. He gave her his best woebegone puppy eyes and she tried not to laugh as she pointed toward the kitchen. "Go ask the elves. Maybe they'll find some kind of table scraps for you."

"Table scraps?" Ginny asked.

"Or his favorite dish, cooked from scratch, while he regales them with stories of how he _almost_ got the Snitch from Draco."

Ginny looked over at Blaise, who was making a strangled trying-not-to-laugh sound again and said, "Are you going to just sit there or come here and help us finish this bottle before Theodore gets home from wherever he and Percy went?"

"You don't - "

"Mind?" Ginny almost goggled at him. "Merlin, did people kick you as a child or something? Get over here." Blaise didn't answer that but did pull his chair over and the three of them sat, drinking wine, and watched Harry and Draco zigzag back and forth, yelling good-natured insults at one another as the Snitch eluded them both.


	216. Chapter 216 (Class Field Trip: 2 of 3)

"This just seems like a bad idea," Harry said. It wasn't the first time he'd expressed that opinion and he eyed the group of sixth and seventh year Defense Against the Dark Arts students with a look that suggested he thought they were mental. "This isn't a game," he said again. "This is Dark Arts of the… just the worst. It's just the worst. And you'll see them and panic and - "

"We don't need to worry," one girl said. "You're here."

"Famous last words," Harry muttered. "Look," he said. "I'm not special. I'm just always in the wrong place. You can't count of me as some kind of good luck charm. If those Inferi are still active -"

"Which they might not be," Hermione said.

"Right," Harry said. "But we need to go in as if they are because if they aren't, great, but if they are it could get ugly and fast."

"This is such a bad idea," Draco said. He and Harry exchanged one of their rare looks that confirmed they were in complete sympathy with one another about this. "I never thought I'd be hoping to find a lake of rotting bodies."

Minerva McGonagall had been surprisingly enthusiastic about a practical Defense field trip and had signed off of the project saying only that she'd known Hermione would shake up the place. The Auror Department at the Ministry had been equally positive and had made noises about how, while they had been unable to spare the manpower to do this kind of clean up work, it was great to see the youth taking an interest. Harry had been clapped on the shoulders and told to keep an eye out for likely prospects. Ron, when offered the opportunity to join his friends, had shaken his head. "Hermione and I are more likely to distract one another and this is potentially too dangerous for that," he'd said to Harry. "Just…keep an eye on her, okay?"

Hermione and Draco had drilled their class on fire spells since they'd gotten the go ahead and all the students could cast any number of defensive flames with confidence and power, at least in controlled conditions.

This was not a controlled condition.

Harry took a deep breath. "If you want to back out," he said, "this would be the time. I promise you, no one will think less of you for not wanting to face a walking corpse."

Students shifted and looked at one another and a few shuffled their feet uncomfortably, but no one spoke first and so Harry shrugged, wiped blood on the back wall of the cave he'd hoped to never see again, and led the group into its dark recesses. They arranged themselves as they had practiced, in small groups, and Harry bent down and, muttering "here goes nothing", stuck his hand into the icy water of the lake before backing up.

The hope that the Inferi had settled into true death with the demise of Voldemort proved false. The water stirred almost instantly and hands gripped tighter onto wands as bodies began to pull themselves up and out of the depths. Many of the corpses were far better preserved than you would have expected them to be; the Inferi process clearly kept, well, not body and soul, certainly, perhaps 'body and body', together better than you would have seen in a truly dead body. This didn't mean they were pretty, and you could tell which unfortunates had been there the longest by how advanced their decay was. Some were just skeletons; some still had enough of their original humanity left if you had known the person, you probably would have recognized the body.

Students launched immobilization spells as the horrifying army approached and began taking them down with fire one at a time. Harry stepped back to watch the carnage. Hermione and Draco had done a good job preparing the students for the onslaught and, if a few froze at the sight before them, enough kept their wits to slowly lay the suffering dead into into a final rest.

So far, so good.

Harry walked up to one girl who shivered, her wand quaking in her hand. "Why don't you start levitating the bodies that have been burned and aren't," he searched for the word and settled on, "active. Get the ones that aren't active anymore out of the cave. Take someone with you," he added. "Don't be alone."

She nodded gratefully and, after tapping a friend on the shoulder and whispering to her, began to do as he suggested.

Harry turned back to the lake where another wave of Inferi were rising. Skeleton followed skeleton followed bloated body with puffed, water-logged skin. He swallowed hard as he looked at one. Dark hair hung over a face he almost knew. The cheekbones and jawline of the Black family was hard to miss even with the swollen body; he'd seen something like that in his nightmares since he'd been fifteen.

"Sirius?" he whispered.

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning?_**


	217. Chapter 217 (Class Field Trip: 3 of 3)

Inferi smelled bad. That was the main thing Draco was thinking as he watched his students petrify them, burn them, and levitate the charred and crumbling remains out of the cave. His second thought was that Voldemort had killed so many people just to build this one trap. How many other traps were out there? How many walled up caves were filled with armies like this one, just waiting for orders from a wizard that would never come?

This was what Potter had decided to spend his life eradicating, Draco mused as the students got into a rhythm of destruction. He felt a certain grudging respect that the Boy Who Lived hadn't opted to coast on his fame, write a book, and spend his time telling people the story of how he'd defeated Voldemort over and over again. He could have. He - Weasley too - could have done nothing for the rest of their lives and instead the Chosen One had chosen to go back into caves and face these monsters for as long as it took.

Draco didn't think he would have done it. He didn't think he _could_ have done it.

He looked over at Potter, expecting to see the long-time rival eliminating Inferi with the same efficiency the Defense students had, or bolstering the confidence of the ones who faltered with a few, carefully chosen words of encouragement. Harry Potter was the endlessly annoying, irreproachable bastard who never faltered and who always caught both literal and metaphorical Snitches. Instead of going on being perfect, however, the man stood as though someone had cast _petrificus totalus_ on him instead of the approaching Inferi.

Draco pushed through the line of his own students to shake the man. "What the fuck, Potter?" he demanded as he tried to snap the man out of it. "Are you having some kind of a breakdown?"

Potter ignored him. "Sirius?" he whispered, staring at one of the approaching corpses with a look of horror and longing fighting for dominance on his face. His green eyes sparkled with what looked like tears and Draco didn't know what was going on but Potter seemed bewitched. He turned his own wand on the creature coming toward them, froze him, and began to utter the charm that would engulf the body in flame until there wasn't enough left to amble forward in its mindless determination to protect the lake.

"No," Potter wrestled his arm down. "It's Sirius," he said again, the tone desperate. "We can fix him, he's not gone, he's - "

"I don't know who you think that was," Draco hissed, yanking his arm back, "But he's a corpse now, Potter, and there is no 'fixing' him."

Potter looked at him and Draco stared into the face of a lost boy. "But it's Sirius," he whispered. "I… I can't…"

"I can," Draco said. He got the spell out and the immobilized body began to burn. Hermione had come over to them and had one had on Harry's arm in concern.

"It was Sirius," Harry said to her. "Malfoy burned - "

"Harry," she said, "It wasn't Sirius. It _can't_ have been Sirius."

Harry shook his head. "He…Voldemort… he would have loved to have turned Sirius into a - "

"I know, but you watched him fall through the Veil," Hermione said, her hand still on Harry's arm and her eyes painfully kind. "Sirius is gone, Harry. He's still gone. That wasn't Sirius, it can't have been. There was no body for Voldemort to take." She looked up at Draco and mouthed, 'Get him out of here', and Draco nodded in sharp acknowledgement that Potter had somehow become a liability.

"Watch the students," he said to her. The onslaught had slowed down and it seemed they had reached the end of them but he still didn't like the thought of leaving a class of children in this wretched cave, even children as old, or older, than he had been when he'd been drafted into this war they were still cleaning up. Hermione just jerked her head toward the exit and, following her unspoken order, Draco hustled Potter out of the dank prison that seemed closer and more miserable than it had even moments before and forced the man to sit down on a rock outdoors in the sun.

"Sirius Black?" he asked. When Potter nodded he said, "Want to tell me about it."

"Not really," Harry Potter said, but almost without volition he added, "He was my godfather."

"Died," Draco said. He remembered, of course, now that he'd had a few minutes to put it together. Bellatrix had been unpleasantly gleeful about that particular kill. He just didn't understand why remembering that one death out of so many would leave Potter in this state.

"Yeah," Potter said, his face down in his hands. "He was one of the only people who ever," he stopped and looked over at the students who hovered near the piles of charred bones, alert to any hint of movement. "Who ever loved me," he said at last. "Him and Remus."

"Also dead," Draco said. "He was married to my cousin," he added, still bitter that Remus Lupin's connection to his family had caused him no small amount of grief at the hands of Death Eaters gleeful at the chance to kick at the disgraced Malfoys.

"Your parents loved you," Harry said. Draco didn't respond. Whatever his problems with his parents had been, he'd never doubted he was adored. "It wasn't like that for me. My aunt and uncle… they didn't care for me. And Dumbledore… he was… he turned out to be not what I had thought at first."

"Dumbledore was a bastard," Draco said automatically. He watched Harry Potter get himself mostly under control and said after a bit, "It's funny."

"You think this is all _funny_?" Harry looked up, a glint in his eye that said he was thinking of pummeling Draco Malfoy into the ground right here.

"Just that the two people who really gave a shite about you were both related to me," Draco said. "Sirius was my mum's cousin and Remus Lupin married mine." He kicked his foot in the dirt and watched an insect he couldn't identify leap away. "So many weird little ties between us."

"Yeah," Harry said. He looked back down. "Want to go back to my place and get really fucking pissed tonight to celebrate that no one died in this misbegotten idea of Hermione's?"

Draco risked letting a hand rest on the other man's shoulder and when Harry Potter didn't flinch away from him he said, "Fuck, yes. Please."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all for your ongoing support of this story. Your enthusiasm matters more than I can say._**


	218. Chapter 218 (Class Field Trip:Aftermath)

Hermione had opted to leave Draco and Harry so she could take the Defense of students back to Hogwarts, claiming she wanted to debrief them after their experience with the Inferi. She told Draco to take Harry home and make sure that he was okay and so Draco found himself stuck alone with Harry Potter.

He had given Hermione a look at her suggestion that she could handle the students if he would just get Harry back to Grimmauld Place; he had assumed they would split those responsibilities the other way. Draco felt her ulterior motives were showing as, apparently, did Potter, who muttered, "I guess she decided it was just time for us to bloody well get on with it."

They didn't talk as Potter let them both in the Black townhouse, didn't talk as they sat down in what had once been a parlour and now looked like the greenhouse of a madman, didn't talk as Harry Potter fetched them both alcohol so they could embark on their post-Inferi plan of getting stinking drunk. Draco wasn't sure what to expect from the man's liquor cabinet: would Potter pull out fine whiskey? Good bourbon? He knew the man was as rich as Croesus, so he wasn't expecting cheap ale. Potter passed him a bottle almost apologetically.

"My Uncle Vernon always bought expensive wine designed to impress his business associates with what a sophisticated fellow he was. It's given me a bit of a bias against snooty booze."

Draco snorted and said, almost automatically, "You should never buy alcohol to try to impress other people. It just makes you look like a social climber and they can always tell."

Harry huffed out a laugh. "Social climbers," he said, "that's a good description for the Dursleys." He looked down into the neck of his bottle and added, "Sometimes I wonder if his resentment of my parents wasn't just the magic thing, though he certainly despised that, but the realization that his sister-in-law had married what amounted to an aristocrat. Plain old-fashioned jealousy."

Draco only reacted with the slightest aristocratic shrug of his own shoulders. If Potter had decided that this was the time to let loose stories of the miseries of his childhood, he certainly wasn't going to emote all over him in response. That just wasn't done.

They drank in silence until Harry said, "Damn fool idea, that was, taking a bunch of students to fight Inferi." He looked over at Draco, who was in full agreement with Potter's assessment. "I know it wasn't your idea," Harry said. "You're too much of a coward to ever think that going into a cave filled with walking dead people is a good idea. No, that had Hermione written all over it."

Draco shrugged again. It was true, they both knew it, and there was no point in denying it.

They made their way through several more bottles in silence before Harry finally said, "I know it wasn't Sirius I saw. That wouldn't have been possible. It just looked so much like him. Took me back for a moment. Sorry about all the fuss."

"Must have been a bit of a shock," Draco offered.

Harry let out a pained laugh. "You have no idea," he said. "Made me stop in my tracks and not a lot does that these days."

"Yeah," Draco said, imagining some of the things that Harry have seen over the course of the war. He took a deep drink and thought how this swill seemed to get better with every bottle. He would have to ask Hermione to track some down because he was fairly sure it was Muggle in origin and he wouldn't be able to just pick some up in Diagon Alley. "I'm sorry about some of the shit I pulled in school," he said.

"Really?" Harry asked.

Draco considered. "Some of it," he said. "The thing where I dressed up like a Dementor was pretty shitty."

Harry took a drink and muttered something that sounded like agreement.

"The Potter Stinks badges were clever though," Draco said.

Harry glared at him before admitting, "They were, weren't they?" He sighed. "Wish I'd taken your hand when we were eleven, sometimes. You just sounded like such an arsehole. You were a scrawny version of my Uncle Vernon."

"The social climber with the wine he didn't appreciate?" Draco asked in genuine horror.

"That's the one," Harry confirmed.

Draco didn't want to pursue that he'd sounded like some abusive, Muggle climber so he said, "I wonder who the Inferi was who looked so much like your godfather,."

"Your cousin," Harry said.

Draco tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling. Vines were clinging to the plaster. "I never knew him," he said. "If anything, that Inferi looked like my Aunt Bella to me. Same cheekbones. Same dark hair." Harry didn't say anything so he added, "I guess we each saw our own nightmare."

"Regulus," Harry said.

"What?" Draco demanded. He knew they were both pretty drunk but Harry had just stopped making sense.

"Regulus Arcturus Black," Harry said. "His room's upstairs. Kreacher keeps it like a shrine. He… Regulus… he went to that cave, he stole the locket. He… Malfoy, he's been lying there under the water, drowned and turned into an Inferi, for… he was a hero and no one…"

Harry turned away and Draco let the man get a grip on himself. "I'm glad we went then, he said. "Someone who was a hero shouldn't have to have his body… I'm glad we went."

"Me too," said Harry.

"We should… there should be a grave," Draco said. "We should do that. For him and his brother."

Harry glanced back at him and this time it was Draco who turned away. He didn't want to see the raw agony on the other man's face.


	219. Chapter 219 (Dinner at the Burrow)

Molly kissed Percy with delight at his appearance at her weekly family dinner before she really looked at the guest he'd brought.

"Mrs. Weasley," Thedore Nott said with the perfect courtesy he used with people he expected to dislike him, "What a pleasure to see you again. Thank you for having me over to your home." He handed her the box of artisan chocolates he'd brought as a hostess gift and she fumbled when she took it from his hands, almost dropping it.

"Mum," Percy said, "You remember Theodore, I'm sure." He flicked his eyes to George, who'd snagged the chocolates from his mother and was admiring them with avaricious lust. George glanced back at him with an expression that might have meant 'good luck', or, perhaps, 'this'll be fun.'

"Ah, yes," Molly said. "I didn't realize you were friends." She hesitated for a moment on the threshold before stepping aside and saying, "Do come in. Any friend of Percy's is, of course, welcome here."

Theodore smiled at her and followed Percy into a living room more comfortable than decorated and sat next to the man on a sagging couch. Percy took his hand and Ron, observing the gesture, let out what sounded like a nervous laugh. Theodore looked around the room as George settled into an armchair, Ron leaned against the doorframe, and Molly hovered as if unsure whether she wanted to sit down and interrogate him or dart off to the kitchen to find something to do away from the Slytherin contaminating her home. "How did you meet?" Ron asked as the silence became uncomfortable.

"Up at Hogwarts," Percy said. "I went up to check on Ginny last year over the Christmas holiday." He made a point of looking around. "Where is Ginny anyway?"

"She's a busy girl," Molly Weasley said. "She's always off practicing with the Harpies and such."

"Plus," George said, "Harry's put out that Mum keeps questioning McGonagall's competence. It makes for fascinating conversations." He leaned toward Theodore and said in a stage whisper. "It's a pity you'll miss it, but I suspect there'll be more than enough entertainment tonight, even without Gin."

"George," Molly Weasley said in a quelling tone. George just grinned at Theodore who returned a much more guarded smile. Apparently he and Percy had an ally of sorts but he wasn't sure he trusted the notorious prankster who'd endured a particular kind of especially horrific loss in the war. He didn't think his father had killed the man's twin but, to be honest, he couldn't be sure. He could never be sure.

Molly asked Theodore a series of seemingly polite questions about his work, which he didn't have, his plans, which he didn't have, and his family, which, if he were being honest, he didn't think he had.

Percy, however, would have none of that. "You and Hermione are near enough to honorary siblings, and Malfoy's never moving out, and I think Andy is at the Manor more often than he's at Hogwarts."

"Plus you," Theodore said.

"And Susan," Percy said. "And whatever Blaise is."

"Who's Andy?" Molly asked, ignoring Theodore's response. She wasn't pleased to hear a student was slipping away from the school to stay with barely-even-adults who weren't even his family. She tsked and asked if they had permission from his father and, at Theodore's quiet response that he didn't think Andy's father was that involved in his son's life, she bristled. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

"It is hard for Muggle parents of wizard children," Theodore said. "And Andy's mum died when he was little. I think his dad wants to pretend the magical world doesn't exist and that Andy's just off at some ordinary boarding school."

"I think it's brilliant," George said before his mother could express any more opinions. "Who wouldn't want to get out of the dorms to go home at night and get decent food? I wish we'd thought of it." He smiled at his mother. "Fred and I would have been here every other night."

She blanched at the name. "I'm sure you would have," she said. "But Mr. Nott here isn't this boy's father and, I mean, given his orientation - "

"What?" Ron was the one who interrupted her this time. "Please tell me you didn't just - "

"Try to recall, mother, that I am of that same orientation," Percy said stiffly. "Assuming you were referring to Theodore's sexual orientation and not his House affiliation or his father's war alliance."

"You're in a phase," Molly said impatiently. "Just like Charlie was. He ended up with, well, not the witch I would have chosen, certainly, but - "

"Charlie was bi," Ron said in exasperation. This was clearly a conversation that had been had multiple times before. " _Is_ bi. He moved to bloody Romania to get away from you telling him he just needed to find the right girl - "

"And he _did_ ," Molly said. Ron rolled his eyes.

"But I am not going to," Percy said.

"Move to Romania?" Ron asked with a grin that, against his will, Theodore found himself echoing.

"Well, not that either," Percy admitted. "But this is not a phase, and I'm not going to find a witch, nice or otherwise."

There was another long, awkward silence before George said, "So, a new ice cream shop just opened up near my flat. Anyone up for going there for dessert later?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - one unpleasant family meeting down, one to go…_**


	220. Chapter 220 (Percy Goes to Azkaban)

When the guard sneered at Theodore, Percy raised one pale eyebrow. Theodore just looked at his shoes, unwilling to confront the guard for fear he'd be turned away. "Is this what it's like?" Percy asked in an undertone. "Whenever you come?"

Theodore shrugged and kept his eyes down. "Used to be worse," he said quietly. "I think Susan put a little fear into them when she came up with me. She gushed about her late aunt and her work at the Ministry and looked at everyone's badge and said their names and how she'd be sure to mention the work they were doing at the right department in London."

Percy laughed a little at that. Susan's increasing political savvy might prove dangerous to anyone who crossed her. It was good to have something to laugh at in this grim space. Even without Dementor guards, Azkaban had misery clinging to the walls like a lichen you could never clear away. The room where they waited had years of unhappiness weighing down the very air, and the visitor's room, where Thoros waited for them with his hands chained to the table as usual, was even worse.

"Son," Thoros said.

"Dad," Theodore replied. He stood, shifting from one foot to the other until he just blurted out, "This is Percy. We're… we're together."

"Percy Weasley?" Thoros Nott seemed to consider the name for a moment and then tipped his head toward the two seats on the opposite side of the table. "Please do be seated, boys. I am sorry I cannot offer you refreshments but, of course, my hands are somewhat tied in this regard."

Percy set himself down on the edge of the hard, metal chair. Dents and scuffs attested to both its many years of service and the Ministry's small budget for the prison. He looked up from the chair to meet Thoros Nott's assessing stare. "Arthur's son, I take it," he said. "And the Prewett girl."

Percy nodded. The genealogy obsession so many of these old purebloods had meant Thoros Nott could probably recite the ancestry of every living member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, including the ones who had rejected the notion that blood status meant anything.

To be fair, of course, Percy wasn't sure that, for all his parents weren't blood purists in the sense the man in front of him was, they didn't still care about the notion. There weren't that many truly purebloods left, and hadn't been even when his parents had met and married, yet somehow they'd ended up together. He'd also noticed that, for all his father had a quirky interest in Muggle culture, he'd never encouraged his children to make friends with any of the local Muggles, or even half-bloods. They'd stayed isolated in the Burrow, sheltered until they went to Hogwarts. It wasn't, certainly, the same virulent prejudice Thoros Nott felt, but Percy couldn't quite believe his parents didn't harbor a more polite version of the same idea.

"A pureblood, then," Thoros said musingly.

"Also a blood-traitor," Percy pointed out. Like the rest of his siblings he carried that moniker as a badge of honor.

Thoros made a slight shrug as if to say it were true but there were worse things. "I am glad," he said to Theodore. "The Weasleys are an old family, and the Prewetts as well. Fallen on hard times in this generation, of course, but respectable." He coughed and Percy could feel Theodore flinch beside him as the man waited for more evidence of the lung ailment that was stealing his father's life. The cough was just a cough this time, however, and when no bloody sputum came up, Thoros went on, "It would be hard, I think, to find long term happiness with someone from a lesser background."

Theodore stirred and Percy slid one foot under the table to nudge against his and said, as if Thoros Nott hadn't just been appalling, "I promise, Mr. Nott, that I will do my best to take care of Theodore."

"I loved his mother very much," Thoros said. The words pushed back against the sorrow of the room for a moment before they gave up and fell away and grief took over again. "He reminds me of her. His heart is good, better than mine ever was. If you let him, he'll - ." A spate of violent coughing wracked the elderly man and Percy felt the same helpless urge to save the dying bigot that consumed Susan.

"He'll - " Thoros Nott tried again, and again coughed so hard Percy began to fear the man would shake his frail frame into pieces.

"I know," he said. "I know that. And I will."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - So that's that._**


	221. Chapter 221 (Rebuilding Day: 1 of 4)

"They're doing it _again?_ "

Hermione nodded and handed Susan the note she'd found in her faculty box that morning. Susan skimmed the note quickly at first and then read it more slowly before saying, "But it was a terrible idea."

"What was?" Blaise asked. Before anyone could answer he tweaked the paper out of Susan's fingers, skimmed it, then asked, "What the fuck is 'Rebuilding Day'?"

Hermione just slouched lower in her seat and muttered something about apparently public relations were more important than education and how was she supposed to do any actual _teaching_ if students were constantly getting missing classes because of Quidditch injuries and ridiculous special days no one wanted and did anyone actually realize how many students missed classes because of Quidditch?

"It's… last year…" Draco floundered about searching for a way to explain McGonagall's brainchild. The idea had seemed poor but necessary last year, a way to showcase that the school had indeed been rebuilt. He didn't want to endure it again. He didn't want to smile through gritted teeth at the parents who despised he was there or endure the descent of the Weasleys - for they would surely come as managing Hogwarts appeared to have become Molly Weasley's new hobby. The whole thing had been terrible last time and he anticipated it being terrible again. "Maybe I'll do some kind of showcase of the first years on their brooms," he said at last. "Everyone likes Quidditch."

"Not everyone," Hermione muttered.

Blaise ignored her. "That's great, but you still haven't explained what it _is?"_

"It's shameless pandering," Susan muttered.

"It's fun," Andy said.

"Why is he even here?" Theo demanded of no one in particular. "Andy, aren't you supposed to be at your bloody school? Why are you in my house again?"

"I like your house," Andy said, shoving some of the roasted vegetables into his mouth. "Food's better," he mumbled. "Plus, Trista's there every time I turn around wanting help with her Defense homework."

Hermione picked her head up at that. "Trista has perfect marks in our class," she said. "Why is she asking for help?"

Four men at the table turned to give Hermione nearly matching incredulous looks. "I begin to understand why you didn't date much," Draco said, a comment she ignored but which made Theodore snicker.

"Rebuilding Day," Percy said, "is an excellent idea from a public relations standpoint. It showcases the school as free of conflict and filled with students and professors working towards excellence." He cut his carrot into identical pieces. "It also keeps alumni connected and over time should increase donations to the school which can only result in better facilities."

"Pandering," Susan said again.

"I'm still waiting for a fucking explanation," Blaise said. He glanced at Percy. "Not the gobbeldy-gook politician-speak version, either."

"It's a day when parents and friends are invited to visit the campus," Hermione said in a tight voice. "Not Muggle parents, of course, as they can't see it - "

"And not all the dead ones," Susan muttered.

"- and we put up little booths to sell things - "

"Last year we sold biscuits," Theo said. "Pansy made them. Called the booth _Gingers_ and everything. Thought your brother would choke," he added the last just to Percy who laughed.

" - and there are flying contests with prizes." Hermione slouched even lower in her seat. "We're supposed to come up with a way we can 'contribute' the 'wonderful event.'" She glared at Draco. "And not all of us have a fan club of flying aces we can use to come up with a way to showcase ourselves."

Blaise shrugged. "Why not run a book booth," he asked her. "I know that library has got to have a bunch of old volumes no one wants anymore. Just sort them out and put a couple score out on a table with a sign saying sale proceeds go to buying new works for the collection." He nearly mumbled a final suggestion. "I could help, if you want. Not like I have anything much to do."

Hermione perked up a bit. "You'd have to be willing to deal with Pince," she said. "I don't know how much she'd be amendable to my sweet talking her into letting go of books, even if they didn't belong in the collection."

"Oh," Blaise grinned, "if there's anything I'm good at, it's sweet talking the ladies. I'll get you your books, Granger."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - hello, loveliest of peoples_**


	222. Chapter 222 (Blaise goes to the Library)

Irma Pince almost fell over herself to give books to Blaise. He entered the library and looked charming and abashed and talked about how he'd been brainstorming ideas for a booth for the upcoming Rebuilding Day with Hermione Granger and how they both thought the library could probably use more money for acquisitions, and not for the Dark Arts books people couldn't wait to get out of their family collections these days, but for regular texts students could use. Maybe, Blaise said with a smile, even novels for people who liked to read to pleasure and not just for their classes.

Irma Pince admitted she had received more donations to the Restricted Section, many of them anonymous, than she could catalogue when what she really wanted was to increase the fiction holdings. As she talked she tucked the book she'd been reading further under a pile of papers. It was too late; Blaise had already seen the title.

 _Her Eternal Vampire Lover._

He didn't let on he'd seen, of course, but he was already anticipating telling Susan that the buttoned up librarian with the angry glare had _horrible_ taste in romance novels. Salacious taste. Taste that, if the cover illustration was a guide, made the men's magazines he had discreetly tucked away under his mattress tame. The entire time he spent in the Hogwarts Library, charming the bitter woman with his smiles and commiserating with her that students just didn't read enough or appreciate books, he wondered how many other naughty titles she had in her desk.

The idea was somewhat horrifying and it became more so when she said, with a sigh, that Professor Snape had always liked books.

What thrilled him even less than the combined mental image of Madam Pince and pornographic romance novels was the discovery they were expected to build their own booths. That seemed taking the idea of student involvement a bit far.

"I am not some _carpenter_ ," he said later that day over dinner at Nott Manor. "I don't even have the proper _shoes_ to build some kind of sales booth."

Susan smothered a laugh and he put on his best aggrieved look. "Shoes are very important, Sue," he said. He glanced down at the shoes she'd kicked off after coming home from the Ministry. "For example, those sad little pumps say, 'downtrodden'. When are you going to let me take you shopping?"

"Well," she said, "since I was trodding on down to the bowels of the archives today, that's a good thing for them to say. I like my shoes to be honest." She ignored his comment about the shopping.

Percy perked up. "Did you find it?" he asked.

"I did," she said with a grin. "Draco's contact put me in the right vicinity but nothing before 1654 is indexed so I had to manually search through a lot of old boxes of parchment but I have, in my little bag, the official, Wizengamot approved, never updated, Wergild rates."

Wergild rates, as set before the Norman Conquest and routinely confirmed by the Wizengamot as part of budget bills no one read for hundreds of years after that, were low. Percy summoned the document and pushed back from the table to read it. When Theo asked for the verdict Percy laughed. "Don't piss me off," he suggested. "I can, it would seem, kill you for less than the cost of one pair of Blaise's shoes."

"I do have very nice shoes," Blaise said. "These weren't cheap."

"Slip it into a bill," Percy said. "One line item to confirm recompense rates of the sort known as wergild as previously confirmed by the most honorable Wizengamot of whatever year last did it."

"Can I put it in in Anglo-Saxon?" Susan asked. Blaise laughed but Percy gave her an admonitory look that made her sigh and agree that would make the point stand out and someone might actually read it which they did want to avoid.

"Now, if your scheming has been all settled," Blaise said, "Could we get back to more important things, like who the fuck knows how to build a sales booth?"

Susan pointed at Theodore, who looked up at the ceiling. "He did ours last year," she said. "It was a disaster, and we had to shore it up with magic, but he _did_ technically build a booth."

"Excellent," said Blaise. "Theodore, you can technically help me build this one."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - good morning!_**

 ** _There is a brief snippet of Pince's book on tumblr:_** ** _unknown-authoress DOT tumblr DOT com /post/140109406866/her-eternal-vampire-lover_**


	223. Chapter 223 (A Trip to Paris)

"We made it a month," Draco said to her as he took his hands off her eyes. "Almost two."

Hermione looked around the hotel room. He'd somehow gotten a portkey to a field he'd refused to identify, and then had side along apparated her to this room. This _luxurious_ room. The bed sat between four posters and invited her to snuggle into the decadent pouffy cover for a nap. A fireplace beckoned. There was a tray of chocolate covered strawberries on a marble table next to a chilling bottle of champagne. She almost ran to the window and pushed open the curtains. Double doors opened out onto a metal balcony that overlooked -

"Draco," said in awe. "Is that the Eiffel Tower?"

He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. "It is," he murmured in her ear. "But if you have even the slightest intention brewing in your pretty head about going out to play tourist you need to let those ideas go. I plan to exhaust you in other ways, ways that do not involve queuing up or standing in crowds as everyone makes impressed sounds at the same part of a bored tour guide's spiel on Notre Dame."

"But it's Paris," she said in protest as he began pulling her jumper off over her head. "Paris!" she protested, muffled by fabric. She turned to look at the blond man who regarded her with a smirk. "You can't bring me to Paris and then say we're just going to have sex!"

"Hermione," he said.

"Yes?"

"I brought you to Paris and we're just going to have sex," he said. "Lots of sex."

He padded across the room in feet already stripped of their shoes and poured her a glass of the champagne. She took it and pouted, the thrust of her lower lip hiding the smile of delight. She was in a hotel room _with a view of the Eiffel Tower_ and Draco Malfoy was holding a strawberry out for her. She couldn't really complain. She went to take the strawberry with her hand and he pulled it back out of reach. "Let me feed you," he said, smirk still firmly in place.

That was how she found herself wearing only a knickers and brassiere set she had transfigured on the sly to something far less practical than what she'd had on when they left Nott Manor, leaning up against Draco's bare chest as he held one piece of fruit after another to her lips. "I could get used to this," she said.

"No urge to go view some historical and very important building?" he teased as his fingers played at the edge of the red lace knickers he already commented he'd never seen before.

Hermione set the champagne down and turned. "I could be persuaded that other activities were a better use of my time," she said. She took a finger and traced it over the sectrumsempra scar and then down along his abdomen. All that flying had kept him more than fit and his muscles were hard under her hand.

She let her hand drift lower and he let out a quick exhalation as she confirmed other things were hard as well. "Do you want to persuade me?" she asked. "I mean, it's Paris. It seems a shame to not go out."

"Lie down," he said, "and let me do my best to explain why you should let playing tourist wait for another day." He fumbled with the hook on her bra as she followed his instructions. "I do like this," he said as he tossed it aside. "You should wear it more often." He lowered his head down to her breasts and then paused, looked at the champagne glass he'd set on the hearth and said, "I wonder."

She squealed as the cold drink splashed over her skin and the gasped as he began to lap it away. "Draco," she gasped as he paid particular attention to one nipple. "I think I am well and truly persuaded."

"Mmm," he said as he worked his mouth down lower and began to tug her knickers off. "While I'm glad you find my argument compelling, I don't think it's wise to reply on just one to make my case. I feel I need you to consider the many other points I have to offer."

He had a number of points he set out for her to ponder over, though based on the noises she made as he presented these arguments, she wasn't considering them with a wholly rational and disinterested mind. Nevertheless, she conceded later that he was, indeed, a master at the art of persuasion and his suggestion they stay in had been an excellent one.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - a little dramione fluff…_**


	224. Chapter 224 (Rebuilding Day: 2 of 4)

Blaise smiled at each set of parents who walked by at Rebuilding Day and he charmed and flattered and engaged in earnest conversations about the library's collection. Madam Pince had given him seven boxes of books no person in their right mind would want and beamed at him and told him how happy she was to see alums come back and care about the condition of the school.

As he tried to convince a woman with an unfortunate jumped emblazoned with appliqué poppies and kittens that it would be an act of charity and school support to purchase the copy of _Games you Can Play with your Kneazle_ he was holding out to her, he saw a familiar ginger head coming toward him. He suspected Ronald Weasley was looking for Hermione Granger. Any booth labeled 'Books' would be a good place to find Draco's bushy-haired swot but the man was going to be disappointed as Hermione had long since abandoned him. Blaise deftly took the woman's money - success in sales again - and handed her the almost immaculate volume; it had been checked out exactly once during its tenure at Hogwarts by Millicent Bulstrode. Millie had defaced one page by writing in her perfect copperplate script, "This is bullshite," returned it, and it had never moved again until war had blown it off its shelf.

"Weasley," he said as kitten-jumper-woman walked away and was replaced by a far less amenable potential client. "Could I interest you in K _nitting with Kneazle Hair_? It might make a good Christmas gift. As I recall your mother was a knitter."

Blaise had a lot of kneazle-themed books to unload. Someone in book acquisitions in the past had been a crazy cat lady.

"Very funny," Ron Weasley said. "Where's Hermione?"

"Fuck if I know," Blaise said. He looked toward the Quidditch pitch where he'd last seen her. "Sucking off Draco wouldn't be a bad guess, though, if you're looking."

Ron glowered at him and Blaise leaned forward and rested his elbows on the edge of the not wholly stable booth. This was too much fun. "Must chafe your arse a bit," he said conversationally. "Getting dumped for the bad guy, especially when they're so nauseatingly adorable all the time. They live together, work together. He took her to Paris recently just to celebrate some random 'it's Saturday so let's go be cute and rich together' thing."

"I'm glad she's happy," Ron said so stiffly and woodenly Blaise expected him to just turn into a board. "But as - "

"And the way Slytherins are suddenly the thing in your family," Blaise continued, ignoring Ron's attempt to excuse himself. "First your brother marries Pansy, then Percy and Theodore. What next? Is George going to try to woo Millie away from her kneazles?" He leaned closer to Ron and added in a stage whisper, "If he does have plans that way you might want to give him a heads up that he's not really her type."

"George has a girlfriend," Ron said, still just as stiff.

"Oh?" Blaise tilted his head to the side. "How about you? I'm single if you wanted to keep the Slytherin theme going."

Ron got immediately flustered and furious and Blaise had to keep from laughing. "I also have a girlfriend," Ron said. Establishing his straight credentials had clearly just become of paramount importance. "And not a Slytherin, I'll have you know." He might have muttered something about how there were four houses at Hogwarts and plenty of people didn't date Slytherins.

"Not Daphne, then," Blaise said, pretending he cared. "Cho Chang? She was always hot." He tried to think of the woman least likely to appeal to Ron Weasley. "I know," he said. "Marietta Edgecomb."

Ron looked appropriately horrified and was goaded into revealing more than he probably realized. "Her name is Tracey," he snapped. "And she was at Beauxbatons, and she's a half-blood, so decidedly not Slytherin."

"A French girl?" Blaise asked.

"No, British," Ron said. "Look, I wanted to say hi to Hermione, but if she isn't here, I'm gone."

He strode off and Blaise called after him, "Does this mean you aren't interested in the knitting book?" Ron didn't look back and Blaise snickered. "Have fun with Tracey, the half-blood who finished at Beauxbatons and absolutely isn't a Slytherin."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - Ah, school alumni and parent events._**

 ** _The two books Blaise tries to sell are based on real books, Games You Can Play with Your Pussy and Knitting with Dog Hair. These are real titles available for purchase._**


	225. Chapter 225 (Rebuilding Day: 3 of 4)

Hermione watched the students in Draco's flying classes dart through the air. They flew too quickly. They skimmed across the grass, shot up straight into the air, then plunged back down only to pull back at the last possible moment.

Quidditch was the stupidest game she'd ever heard of. Playing this game was just asking to get hurt. Ginny, no stranger to Quidditch injuries, screamed beside her in exhilaration as some tiny Hufflepuff, her pony tail streaming out behind her, flew, spinning from upside down to right side up and back again. Just watching the girl made Hermione's stomach heave.

"Isn't she great," Draco said as Ginny clapped wildly. "Totally fearless and only eleven years old. She showed up not having ever flown before - didn't even know you _could_ fly on brooms - and she practiced every single day until, well, look at her. And it's only October."

"She's going to spend all her time in the Infirmary," Hermione muttered. "Or I will, when she gives me a heart attack."

Ginny just laughed and she and Draco tipped their heads together so they could plot her guest teaching appearance. Schedules had conspired against them thus far but the seemed to think they'd manage it soon.

"Where are her parents?" Hermione muttered as the girl whipped past them again, now doing some kind of tight flying formation with a mass of the other students that seemed to involve near misses calculated to terrorize sensible adults.

"Can't come," Draco said, raising his voice to be heard of the din made by the crowd. At Hermione's perplexed look he elaborated. "Muggles."

She nodded and turned back to watch the fliers. One of the things she hated most about Rebuilding Day was the way the Muggle-born children, like the war orphans, ended up unwittingly stigmatized. You couldn't exactly take your parents by the hand and show them your prowess at turning cups to pin cushions if the castle wards protecting the place from Muggles kept them away, so while other first years chattered at their parents and fifth years slouched in aggravation as about their parents asked about their most recent marks, the Muggle-borns pretended not to care.

It made her a little more sympathetic to Draco's flying display. At least his wee Hufflepuff wouldn't spent her whole day alone.

"What about Andy?" she asked. For all that the boy seemed to spend more time at Nott Manor than he did at school, he didn't talk about home. He talked more and more about Trista, who had developed a heavy hand with the lipstick and often sported a look Hermione would have called 'constipated' but which Trista probably meant to be 'come-hither' and which Andy seemed to take that way. He talked about food. He talked endlessly and tediously about flying. He didn't mention home.

"His dad's Muggle," Draco said. "So…"

He trailed off and Hermione nodded. With his mum long passed, if his only remaining parent was a Muggle it didn't matter the boy himself was a half-blood. For the purposes of Rebuilding Day he was just as alone as the Muggle-borns and orphans.

She thought bitterly to herself that she was fortunate enough to count as both. She should go to Australia over the holidays just to look at her parents. She could reassure herself they were doing fine, that they were happy, even if they didn't know she existed.

As she decided that, yes, she would do that, Theodore sauntered up. She looked around for Percy but he wasn't in sight and Theodore laughed. "He got trapped by his mum," he said. "She was polite to me, but I thought discretion and valor and all that meant it was perfectly acceptable to flee." He wrapped an arm around her waist and she leaned into him as Draco and Ginny cheered for the newest, terrifying flying antic. "I hate this day," he muttered. "Percy went on and on about what a great idea it is for public relations and all that but from a certain perspective it's just cruel."

Hermione nodded. "Cruel to you," she said. "Cruel to me, cruel to Andy."

The Andy in question flew by with a whoosh of air, a mostly-eaten apple in his hand, and both Theodore and Hermione laughed at the utter glee on his face. The laugh became harder still when the boy doubled back and dropped the core into Theodore's hand. "Hold this, would you?" the boy yelled before darting off.

"Sure," Theodore said to the empty air before looking at the apple in his hand. "Gross, Andy."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - good morning!_**


	226. Chapter 226 (Rebuilding Day: 4 of 4)

Hermione found Neville manning Pomona Sprout's booth. He had tiny pots of seedlings classes had nurtured set out in front of him and looked thoroughly bored as he fed little bits of raw meat to one plant. "Hey," she said. "Long time, no see."

For all that they were both at Hogwarts most days, it was true that they hardly ever ran into one another. Neville didn't eat in the Great Hall, preferring to eat lunch on his own in the greenhouses. Hermione assumed he ate breakfast and dinner with Hannah, whom she also hadn't seen in what felt like an eternity.

He gave her a forced grin. "I hate Rebuilding Day," he muttered. "Pomona somehow convinced me this would be a good idea but I've sold all of one plant."

She and Neville exchanged a mutually sympathetic look. "Me too," she said. "Hate this, I mean. Blaise and I are running a book booth for the library, but I kind of abandoned him." She bit the inside of her cheek before she muttered, "He did offer and he's better than I am at getting all the mummies and daddies to buy this crap."

Neville held up a potted plant. "Think you could send him over here when you're all done?"

Hermione laughed and the pair of them eased down to the ground behind the booth where, while they were unlikely to attract any potential horticultural customers, they could also avoid the people who wanted to gush about how exciting it was to meet an actual war hero, and they were just so thrilled and it was so _nice_ they'd come back to Hogwarts. Hermione had already had one woman tell her she was just so sorry that Hermione had to work with that awful Death Eater and she hoped that Minerva McGonagall would come to her senses soon.

Hermione had held up her hand, her ring sparkling in the sharp light of the autumn afternoon, and said, "You mean my fiancé, Draco Malfoy?"

The woman had scurried off, her face bright red.

"How's Hannah?" Hermione asked Neville as they hid behind his booth.

"She's good," he said. "You know how she loves feeding people, so running that place just makes her happy. She even got Pansy to share her ginger biscuit recipe so she's added that to the menu." Neville scuffed his toe along the dirt of the Hogwarts grounds and Hermione waited for the question she knew he wanted to ask. "How's Theodore?"

Hermione reached over and laced her fingers through her friend's and remembered how she'd had to petrify him their first year because he'd stood up to her and Harry and Ron. "You're the bravest person I think I've ever known," she said softly. "Letting him go like that can't have been easy."

"I fucked it up," Neville muttered. "The Yule Ball was…that was - "

Hermione squeezed his hand and he stopped talking. "Bravest," she said again. "And he's happy - really happy - with Percy. They seem well suited to one another." She tipped her head back against the edge of the booth and looked up into the blue, blue sky. Not a cloud marred the day, despite her prayers to any god that might be listening the night before that it be rained out. "Theodore took him up to Azkaban to meet his father," she said. "Percy took him to the Burrow. I think they're serious."

"I'm glad," Neville said. Hermione turned her head to look at him. Neville was stroking the leaves of a tiny wildflower - a weed, really - that had survived all the tromping about to set up the booths. For all that he wouldn't meet her eyes she could tell he meant it. He'd cared about Theodore but he'd known it hadn't been enough; he hadn't loved the man and when he'd seen Theodore had loved him he'd ended it. "He should be happy," Neville added quietly.

"What plant it that?" Hermione asked him.

"I have no idea," Neville said, accepting her change of subject with gratitude in his voice. He'd asked, but there was only so much he could bear.

"Really?" She tended to assume there was nothing about plants Neville didn't know. "You should pot it up and take it to Pomona." She grinned at him. "Maybe you've found some unknown gem, hiding here in the open."

"i doubt that," Neville said, but Hermione had snaked a hand up to the booth behind their heads and pulled down a small, potted plant and handed it to him. With a guilty smile Neville, grabbed another of his plants for sale, uprooted the seedling and forced it to share a home so he could use the newly vacated pot for his find.

"If anyone found a new species, it would be you," Hermione said. "I don't think there's anything you couldn't do."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - Good morning, loveliest readers in fandom!_**

 ** _There is a drabble that shows the theo/neville breakup from neville's point of view called 'fickle things' by likeyouwanntbeloved that is absolutely brilliant. www DOT fanfiction DOT net /s/11743711/1/Fickle-Things_**


	227. Chapter 227 (Pansy Arrives)

Pansy pushed her way into Nott Manor brushing past Hermione and smirking at Susan as she marched through the house to the back parlour.

"How did you get here?" Hermione demanded, trailing after the new arrival.

Pansy gave her a look of disgust. "Apparition, duh. What kind of a witch are you?"

"I feel like I should apologize for her," Charlie said as he came in behind her, "but I am not going to." The smile on his face suggested he didn't really feel the slightest bit uncomfortable with Pansy's blunt demeanor and, rather, found it charming.

Susan, however, did not and she glowered at Pansy. "Don't you have any manners at all?" she asked. "I thought you pureblood types learned that practically in the womb."

Pansy flopped down into a chair and stretched her feet out in front of her. "No," she said. "You have met my mother, right?"

Blaise let out a strangled laugh from where he sat and Pansy eyed him. "Look who couldn't be bothered to show up for my wedding but makes it to a funeral? I think I'm insulted."

"He lives here," Theodore said, tossing an apple at Pansy. "Catch."

She grabbed the fruit from the air and took a bite out of it. "Really? No place better to go, Blaise?"

Susan bristled even more. "I see you're still just as much a bitch after marriage as you were before it."

Pansy took another bite of the apple, chewed it slowly, and looked at Susan, then at Blaise, then back at Susan. "Well, huh," she said.

"Right?" Theodore asked.

"What are you two on about?" Blaise said. "My fucking mother got married again, Pansy, that's all, and I needed out, and Theodore's got guest rooms." He crossed his arms. "Did you really think I'd give that much of a shite about some funeral for some guy who died before I was born?"

"It did seem a bit of a stretch," Pansy admitted.

Draco groaned. "Please try not to be such an arsehole at the actual service," he said. "This means a lot to Potter and it's shitty that no one thought to get a decent burial for either brother for all these years."

Pansy looked at him. "Means a lot to _Potter?_ " she asked. "Who are you and what have you done with Draco Malfoy."

"You will be _late_ ," came a shrill voice from the doorway and the entire crew turned to look at the elf who stood, hands on hips, more agitated than anyone could remember. "Kreacher will be _upset_. You will go _now_."

Obediently they all moved past her so they could apparate from outdoors. "So, remind me what's we're doing," Charlie said in an undertone to Theodore. "All I got was there's a funeral for Harry's godfather at Malfoy Manor and that seemed improbable but there was a concern that one of the kneazles had gotten out and had a little bit too much of a good time with a stray cat and we might have a bunch of unsellable kittens on our hands and it wasn't a good time to ask for clarification."

Theodore smothered a laugh, which seemed inappropriate given what they had planned for the day, and launched into a quiet explanation of Hermione's ill-conceived field trip, prompting an exclamation of, "They did _what_?".

"It wasn't my idea," Theodore said before going to tell how that, as they'd stopped and burned the bodies Voldemort had left behind him, they'd found one of the long missing Black brothers and that had spurred the plan to bury him. The Malfoy cemetery plot had been selected because the man had been Narcissa's cousin and the actual Black burial ground appeared to be haunted by a fairly unpleasant blood purist ghost. The rest of the Inferi had been unidentifiable and, after burning, they were all little more than charred bone fragments anyway. With no way to know who they'd been, the group had decided to bury the lot and put up one marker memorializing them as unknown victims fallen in the war.

"Lucius Malfoy is letting you bury a bunch of unknown Muggles on his property?" Charlie asked in disbelief.

"Lucius Malfoy is even hosting a gathering afterward with cold meats and tea," Theodore said. "I'm not sure what's in those potions Padma's feeding him, but they're clearly amazing."

"They'd have to be," Charlie said, shaking his head. "They'd absolutely have to be."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - Thank you all for being as wonderful and supportive as you are._**


	228. Chapter 228 (Memorial Service, 1 of 3)

Guests drifted about the Malfoy private burial plot as they waited for the start of the memorial service. All the eighth years had appeared, leaving kneazles with unknown adventures and research behind for the day to pay their respects to the heroes and victims of the war they'd fought in.

Minerva McGonagall stood, her back unbending and her jaw clenched as she kept herself upright with the force of will that had seen her through two wars and the deaths of more of her students than she wished to tally up; when Harry had told her what had become of the missing Black brother, however, she'd stared at him in horror and then crumpled and wept at her desk for all the children who had been lost. Some things were past bearing and the idea of the young Regulus turning his back on Voldemort, unprompted by anyone, unsupported by anyone, only to die unmourned and be turned into an Inferi was one of them.

The sixth and seventh year Defense students clustered near one bench. Many of them had had nightmares after their experience with the Inferi in the cave. Most classes since that day had included someone asking how anyone could have done that, what kind of person turned to magic like _that_? Even if the field trip had accomplished nothing else, it had turned every student there away from any interest in the Dark arts. The Ministry told Harry that inquiries about the Auror program had tripled since they'd sterilized that cave, and Draco and Hermione had cemented themselves as the most awe-inspiring teachers one could imagine.

Kreacher stood over the casket that contained what remained of Regulus Black wringing his hands as he sobbed and sniffled and wailed. Pansy looked at the elf with patent disbelief, looked at Charlie who shrugged and led her to a seat. Harry stood by the empty casket that would be buried in tribute to Sirius, Ginny at his side,and said nothing. Draco walked up to him and put his hand on the man's arm, and whispered briefly into Harry's ear. Harry nodded, clasped Draco's hand, and then went back to staring at the casket, his face a mask.

Andromeda Tonks, her hand firmly gripping the wrist of a small boy, stood at the back of the crowd. She nodded at Minerva but looked through Narcissa as if the woman weren't present. When Hermione thanked her for coming she said, her voice like ice, that Sirius had been her cousin, as had Regulus, and family was the most important thing. She had been, she said, pleased to discover that Regulus had repented his folly in the end and died to do the right thing. "Walburga must be rolling in her grave," Andromeda said with vicious satisfaction, her grip never loosening on the boy in her care. "Her little king turned out to be nobler than she'd ever have understood."

"Are you staying," Hermione asked. "Draco's father is having a reception."

Andromeda was about to say no when Hermione added, "I think Draco wants to meet Teddy but is a bit afraid to approach you." She glanced down at the boy who'd managed to become sticky in the way of toddlers, even with no jelly or mud to hand, as if magic alone could generate mess. "They are cousins."

Andromeda's eyes flicked over to the delicate blonde woman who had her hand on Draco's arm and was conversing with him with unflustered poise. "Must kill Cissa," she said. "Burying Muggles at her home."

"She hasn't said a word against it," Hermione said.

"She talks to you?" Andromeda asked. Hermione's silence was answer enough. Narcissa remained cordial and cold and absolutely correct in her interactions with her son's fiancée, but she did not share confidences. If she objected to her husband's plan to inter her cousins and the rest of the destroyed Inferi at Malfoy Manor, Hermione would not be the person she would tell.

Andromeda watched her nephew for a moment as he talked to his mother, then looked down at her grandson. "I'll stay," she said.

"Draco will probably try to take him flying," Hermione warned with a hint of a smile and a dollop of pleasure. "It's what he does with children."

The Ministry official on site to give what would probably be a tedious speech commemorating the heroes and dedicating the memorial statue cleared his throat and everyone began moving toward the arranged seats. "I think I would enjoy watching the Malfoy heir take his werewolf spawned half-blood cousin flying," Andromeda said. "Druella would have a heart attack at that if she weren't already dead. Pity she is, because seeing the very last pureblood scion of the House of Black turn away from everything that harpy thought mattered to play with a child would kill her again and I would have liked to have been able to see her choke and die on her own prejudice that way." She smiled at Hermione. "Shall we sit?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - Good morning!_**


	229. Chapter 229 (Memorial Service: 2 of 3)

After the service the Hogwarts students thanked the Malfoys for their hospitality and then most of them departed, apparating back to the gates of Hogwarts, ready to walk from there to their dorms. The Ministry official had been as pompous and uninteresting as could be expected, announcing at one point that such heroism as Sirius and Regulus had both displayed was just the sort of thing one expected to see from the ancient and noble House of Black.

Andromeda had snorted audibly at that.

Ron Weasley, who'd arrived just as the Minister began to speak and slipped into the seat that had been saved for him on one side of Harry, gave his long time best friend a fierce hug. "I liked Sirius," he said. Molly, who had come with him to pay her respects to a member of the Order she had fought with, hugged Harry as well. She smiled tightly at Draco and Hermione and left after murmuring greetings to Minerva McGonagall.

"Some day she might not be such a… just ugh," Ron said to Hermione. "I'm sorry."

Hermione smiled awkwardly at him and crossed and uncrossed her arms as they stood there. Andromeda rescued them both, though that was surely not her intent, when she dumped the squirming Teddy Lupin into Draco's arms. He stood, flabbergasted, as the toddler began to scream. He knew who the boy was, of course. He'd just never expected his Aunt Andromeda to acknowledge his existence or let him interact with his cousin because of her continued estrangement from Narcissa.

He did recognize the slightly malicious smile on his aunt's face; he'd seen it in the mirror often enough.

"Perhaps you'd like the chance to meet your half-blood cousin," Andromeda said. The child continued to scream while adding flailing to his repertoire. One of his feet made solid contact with Draco's ribs, eliciting an oof from him and a snicker from Potter.

"Of course," Draco said. He considered whether a body bind curse would be acceptable and decided that, unfortunately, it probably would not. "Teddy," Draco said, trying to be heard over the outraged protests and chanting of what was probably meant to be the word 'down' over and over again. "Teddy!" he repeated. The boy, however, just increased his wailing volume until, with a roll of her eyes, Ginny accioed a biscuit from the tables set out for the reception and shoved it in his mouth.

"Do you want to go flying?" Draco asked desperately.

"Told you," Hermione said to Andromeda, who smothered a laugh.

Teddy chomped on the biscuit and said, around a mouthful of crumbs, "Bwoom."

"Well, I wasn't going to suggest a carpet, no," Draco said.

Five minutes later he had the toddler, sticking charms keeping his bottom firmly attached to the broom, soaring over the grounds. Ron laughed at the sight of both Draco Malfoy trying to entertain an over-tired toddler and at the way Narcissa made a face when she saw them. "I think I'd rather eat glass than have that as a mother in law," he said to Hermione.

She glanced at him and just said, "It could be worse. Think of Posy Parkinson."

Ron laughed. "Can you imagine?" he asked. "It's probably good Charlie and Pansy live in Romania and hardly ever make it back here." He glanced up at the flawless blue sky. "My mum would be a pain too," he said. "Harry's more tolerant than… she can be a bit much."

"She loves you," Hermione said.

Ron shrugged. "Yeah, but I kind of admit I dread bringing Tracey home to meet her. It'll be the Spanish Inquisition."

"Tracey?" Hermione raised her eyebrows and, as they loaded up plates with cold meats, Ron told her how he'd met this girl - this amazing girl - who'd been at Beauxbatons and who loved Quidditch even though she didn't play and who adored going to games ("For real, Hermione. She's not just being polite the way you were.") and who could argue with him about who the best players were and who might even know more about it than he did. She loved to eat, and they went out all the time, and he was teaching her chess and he was getting worried he wouldn't be able to beat her soon, and she was just fun.

"She's just fun," Ron said. He sounded almost guilty admitting that. "It's nice to hang out with someone who isn't, well, isn't that intense."

"I'm happy for you," Hermione said, and she was. "Maybe we could all go out sometime?"

"We were going to meet up with Harry and Ginny and Charlie for a pint later tonight," Ron offered. There was a brief hesitation and then he said, "You and Malfoy want to join us?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _a/n - Good morning!_**


	230. Chapter 230 (Memorial Service: 3 of 3)

Padma held her plate in one hand and looked over the tables of food that Lucius Malfoy had set out at the memorial event for Sirius and Regulus Black. She could tell it was all in the best taste and of the highest quality and it filled her with that dreary sense that she had to eat something even if she really didn't want to.

Pansy stepped up behind her and asked, "Everything okay?"

Padma bit her lip and then confessed, "I skipped dinner last night because I was working late and by the time I noticed I was hungry I was in bed, and then this morning I just had a cup of tea and a stale doughnut at the lab and I told myself I could eat here but -." She stopped and began to lift slices of cheese onto her plate with grim resignation. She wouldn't really get sick if she ate even if right now it felt that way.

Pansy nodded and let her eye travel down the laden table until she spotted some stewed oranges and heaped a bunch of them into a bowl. "Try these," she said, shoving it toward Padma. Padma let her former classmate take her by the arm and steer her to a pair of chairs by a rather attractive bunch of bamboo that created a partial shield from the rest of the guests. "The house elves used to make these for me when I was sick," Pansy said. "They're all soft and mushy and sweet and they're easy to eat. You don't have to chew and the sugar rush will help you feel better."

Padma lifted one of the limp looking orange slices into her mouth and was shocked to discover Pansy was right. Despite its unprepossessing appearance, the thing didn't turn her stomach and she ate another one, and then another.

"You shouldn't skip meals," Pansy said.

Padma sighed. "I know," she said. "It's just… I was making headway on adapting a Potion using Muggle research on inflammation and I didn't want to stop and… it's hard, you know?"

Pansy admitted she did. "I've still got vials of Draught of Peace in my bag," she said. "I remember when Granger offered to brew it up for me so I wouldn't have to face Madam Pomfrey and admit I wasn't the fierce, uncaring Slytherin with the big mouth and no soul." She watched Padma eat and then asked, "How's she doing. Granger, I mean. For real, not the public face."

Padma took a bite of the cheese, chewed, swallowed, and wiped her mouth before she answered. "She's hanging in there. She cares about proving herself as a teacher too much and works too hard but Draco tries to keep her from becoming obsessive."

"I heard about the Paris jaunt," Pansy said with a grin.

Padma hesitated and then said, "I spent a lot of time with the elder Mr. Malfoy these days because he's in the lab, and I'm here taking almost daily blood samples and such. I think the hardest thing for both of them is Draco's mother."

Pansy snorted. Anyone could have seen that coming.

"She's very polite and pleasant and she asks me thoughtful questions about the work I'm doing but I can tell she had a hard time believing Muggles could possibly have come up with any non-magical approaches that were more than curiosities." Padma took another bite of the cheese and chewed slowly as she considered Narcissa Malfoy. The woman didn't refuse to permit anything Muggle to touch her beloved husband. She loved him and wanted his suffering to ease more than she hated Muggle innovations. And it wasn't even hatred, really. Narcissa just didn't think Muggles had anything to offer and saw them as a risk to her personal safety. Every time Padma showed her how a treatment that helped Lucius was an integration of the two worlds she was surprised anew. Watching her interact with Hermione at this memorial service Padma had seen the same attitude. Narcissa was genuinely surprised Hermione was clever and competent. She seemed to think it must be a trick and that at any moment someone would pull the curtain back to reveal the way the sleight of hand worked. Draco saw and as his mother condescended to his fiancee he rubbed at his arm.

O"Do you think she knows the way she treats Hermione makes Draco…you know?" Padma asked.

Pansy shook her head. "I don't even think she knows he cuts much less than she triggers it."

Neither of them saw the immaculately dressed hostess pause as she walked behind the bamboo and then stride off, her heels sinking into the lawn as she went.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Well, you know this was coming. Narcissa had to find out sooner or later._**


	231. Chapter 231 (Narcissa & Lucius Talk)

Narcissa found Lucius talking to Minerva McGonagall on the back terrace and said, her voice betraying nothing, "Could I speak to you a minute, dear?"

McGonagall thanked them both again for agreeing to have both the memorial and service on their property, and Narcissa said all the right things about how both Sirius and Regulus were her cousins and while she and Lucius remained devastated by their deaths they were pleased to be able to see them laid to rest at last. She agreed with McGonagall that Draco and Hermione had done a very brave thing when they'd gone into that Inferi-filled cave and managed to control her burning rage that _that man_ had put her only son at risk yet again. Even dead he was still treacherous. She agreed and she agreed and she agreed and at last Minerva McGonagall took her leave, gathering up what few of her students remained and shepherding them back to Hogwarts.

Lucius leaned on his cane. He'd overdone it today in his zeal to provide the perfect service and even the Patil girl's wonders couldn't hide that he was suffering. Tomorrow he'd probably lie in bed the whole day. "What's the matter?" he asked her.

"I just overheard something," she said.

Lucius sighed. "Narcissa," he said. "We knew both that people would question our motives in allowing the remains of the mostly Muggle Inferi to be buried here and that some people would outright object. I am not surprised that - "

"Not about that," she said. She kept her words low so no one could overhear them and a smile on her aristocratic face but she and Lucius had been married a long time, had endured two wars and more miscarriages than she chose to remember together, and she knew he didn't misread her.

"Oh?" his tone got more cautious and he put a smile as bland as her own on his face.

"Your Healer, the one you've been funding," Narcissa began.

"Yes," Lucius said. "She has a food issue. I am aware. That doesn't make her a less competent Healer, Narcissa."

"She said Draco cuts."

Narcissa said the words as plainly as she could and the slight twitch in Lucius' eye confirmed that this was no surprise to him. She went from worried to furious.

"I thought that couldn't possibly be true," Narcissa said. "At first I wasn't sure what she meant but I managed to put it together - you can't have a house full of disturbed people and not become familiar with the myriad ways people hurt themselves andothers - and I thought, not my son. My son wouldn't hurt himself on purpose. Not the child with the sweet tooth who loved that ratty blanket and carried it with him everywhere until he was seven. Not the boy with the stuffed dragon he slept with until the fur wore away. Not _Draco_."

"He's had a very rough - "

"And now I see that you _knew_." Her facade cracked for a moment and Lucius reached a hand out to touch her very lightly on the shoulder. The touch reminded her that people were watching and she looked out over the thinning crowd, her eyes gliding over Andromeda as if she weren't there and settling at last on Draco, who held a very blond toddler by the hand and seemed to be trying to convince the tot that he needed to eat something other than biscuits. Draco's sleeves were long and down and Narcissa suddenly saw that as not a sign of good breeding and knowing to be formally attired at a funeral but a way to hide the Mark on his arm.

A way to hide other marks too, she guessed.

As she watched he gave up and handed the child another biscuit.

"Why didn't he tell me?" she asked Lucius as despair crept around her heart and wrapped its cold hands so tightly she felt she couldn't breathe. "We were always so close."

Lucius sighed and as that Hermione Granger walked up to Draco and said something that made him laugh, Narcissa knew the reason. She watched her son scoop up the toddler and hold him on his hip as the little boy shoved the last bits of the biscuit in his mouth and her throat closed a little more and something stung in her eyes that she blinked away. "My mother," she began.

"Is dead," Lucius said. "They're all dead. Your parents. Walburga and both her boys. Your sister. The old ways are dead and buried." He took her hand and they stood there on the back terrace of a Manor that had sheltered generations of pureblooded witches and wizards. "Maybe it's for the best, Cissa. The last few years, the fruit of that particular tree, it was more toxic than I could have - "

"Don't be maudlin," she said.

"We could invite them over for dinner," Lucius said.

Narcissa nodded, her eyes on the future as Hermione Granger took the child from Draco. "We could do that," she said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you so much for all your kind words._**


	232. Chapter 232 (A Pint with Ron)

"You're going out for a pint with Ron Weasley?" Blaise looked over at Susan who shrugged and tried not to look as amused as she probably felt. "Ron-the-unmitigated-wanker-Weasley?"

"Shh," Draco hissed. "It wasn't my idea. While I was trying to keep my cousin from yanking out all my hair by the roots as we flew back and forth three hundred bloody times, Hermione and her ex had some kind of reconciliation, and now we're going out with him and Charlie and Pansy and his girlfriend, whoever she is."

Blaise licked his lips and Draco began to feel a tiny bit of hope that this evening might not be a total disaster. Whenever Blaise looked that maliciously pleased, something interesting was about to happen.

"Ah, yes," Blaise said. "Well, give Pansy and this mystery girlfriend my love."

Draco was about to ask what Blaise knew when Hermione shrieked that they were going to be late and with a last glance back at his far too amused looking friend, Draco took off to try to be civil with a man he'd be happy never to see again. Potter was bad enough. Potter he could, as it turned out, stand, especially now that he knew what utter shite the man's life had been. He wasn't sure he liked the grudging admiration he felt for the Boy Who Lived, but he damn well knew he didn't like the way Ron Weasley was a bona fide hero.

People he personally disliked really ought to be arseholes. They shouldn't be the kind of people who begged to be tortured in another's place, or who dedicated their lives to rooting out the remnants of Dark magic that still sat in dark alleys and unpleasant crannies. He'd be much more comfortable with the weasel if he were just Hermione's unpleasant ex-boyfriend who'd sent a false tip about the pair of them speculating whether he was under the Imperius to the _Prophet_. That he'd done that while still being basically the kind of man who risked his life against creatures like those Inferi was a bit much to wrap one's brain around.

At least he could enjoy the knowledge that he and his friends had set aside House prejudice and mingled openly with one another while Ron Weasley remained mired in school boy rivalry.

He, Draco Malfoy, was not still caught up in that.

He wasn't.

He disliked Ron Weasley on the man's own merits, not because he was an infuriating, House Cup stealing, loud, crude, Gryffindor.

By the time they'd reached the pub Draco had talked himself into one of his nastiest smirks and settled at the table where Pansy and Charlie waited. He hugged her, noted her cat hair removal spells were as bad as ever, and she said that at least she'd never turned herself into one. She and he laughed with delight as Hermione smacked him on the arm and Charlie demanded to know what was going on. Pansy explained the story of Hermione's misadventures in Polyjuice and Charlie began to laugh too. "Ron never quite mentioned that," he said. "Was there any trouble the three of you managed to avoid?"

Charlie began to launch into the story of how he and his friends had had to cross international borders in secret to rescue a baby dragon, causing Draco to mutter, "I knew it. I _knew_ it," under his breath as Hermione laughed and leaned so her head rested on his shoulder. He twined his fingers through hers under the table and that was how they were, laughing about childhood hijinks, when Ron walked in.

Draco briefly wondered where this mystery girlfriend was and why Tracey Davis was there.

Pansy seemed to be having the same problem. "Tracey," she called with delight, waving the girl over. "I thought you were still in France."

Tracey and Ron both pulled out seats at the table and Tracey said, "My French never really got better so I limped through finishing school at Beauxbatons and came back."

"You know each other?" Ron asked.

Pansy gave him her 'you really are an idiot' look. "We lived in the same room for years, so, yeah, I think I know her."

"Tracey moved to the continent after that year of hell," Draco said, mostly to Hermione. "Completed school there."

"Like the rest of us dirty, dirty Slytherins, she wasn't welcome in Neville's little hidey hole," Pansy said.

"I don't like to talk about Hogwarts," Tracey said. "At all. Could we not?"

Ron looked like he'd swallowed a fly. "You never mentioned you went there," he said in a very quiet voice. "I didn't - "

"I have nightmares still," Tracey said. Pansy slid her beer across the table and Tracey picked it up and swallowed a generous portion. "I don't talk about it. I don't think about it. It's over. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a Beauxbatons girl. They may have made fun of my verb tenses, but they never joked about stripping the skin from my back for the crime of being a half-blood."

"You're a Slytherin," Ron said, his eyes never leaving her face. "A _Slytherin_."


	233. Chapter 233 (More Time at the Pub)

Tracey Davis took another drink of Pansy's beer and eyed her date. Ron looked back at her, still reeling from the revelation she been sorted into Slytherin when she'd been at Hogwarts. "I didn't recognize you," he said, trying desperately to rescue himself from his faux pas. "I mean, we were at the same school for six years; I'm just surprised is all."

Pansy snorted. "As if you'd ever look past the color of the tie, Ronald. I bet I could introduce Millie to you as your own, long lost cousin from Bulgaria and you'd not realize your best friend turned herself into - "

"Enough of that," Hermione said hastily. "No one wants to rehash that story again. I wouldn't have recognized you either, Tracey. Just goes to show how little we all mingled back when we were students." She glanced at Draco, clearly asking his for help with her eyes. He just smirked at her. Watching Ron Weasley flail about in search of aid was far too much fun for him to step in and provide any kind or rescue. "Draco and I are trying to get the students to interact more, right Draco?" she continued on. "We've gotten classes combined and he's doing multi-House flying lessons."

"You never mentioned you even went to Hogwarts," Ron said to Tracey.

"I didn't have a good final year," she said rather curtly. "You don't exactly talk about your school days either and, like I said, as far as I'm concerned I am a Beauxbatons girl."

"But," Ron said, " _Slytherin_." The woman at his side set her jaw in a tight, stubborn thrust and he hurried on. "Just… that last year can't have been anything but awful. If I'd known maybe I'd have been better with the nightmares is all."

Tracey's jaw didn't loosen and Hermione suspected that told more than she wanted to know about what it had been like for the woman that final year. Threatened by the blood purists on one side, excluded for being in green by other students. No wonder she still had nightmares. No wonder she didn't want to talk about it, not even to a lover. Perhaps especially not to a lover she suspected would reject her out of hand for her school affiliation.

Pansy narrowed her eyes at Ron. "Yes," she said. "Slytherin. A House just like any other House, except the rest of you thought we were all a bunch of creeps. And the rest of us have left school and moved on and I suggest you do the same."

"You're teaching flying," Tracey asked Draco. She was used to ignoring Pansy. "At _Hogwarts?_ I thought you never wanted to set foot in the place again."

He shrugged. He hadn't but then things had changed. "After the war," he said, searching for the right words. "My parents were just… they were relentless. They hovered and they fussed and… I couldn't stand it and Hogwarts was taking any willing volunteers to help with the clean up so I rolled my shirt sleeves up and put my nose to the grindstone and - "

"Uttering as many cliches as possible," Hermione said.

" - soldiered on." Draco picked up his own pint and swirled the beer. "And by 'soldiered' I mean 'sorted and cleaned library books'."

"That sounds dreadful," Tracey said. By the look on his face Ron agreed with her assessment.

"I don't know," Draco said. He'd been numb to the work at first; it had just been better than being at Malfoy Manor. He'd been both furious and numb when Hermione Granger had arrived, intruding into his space with her virtue and her status as a heroine. Now he remembered the quiet of those days with a certain nostalgia. They'd been alone to sort books with no friends or students or responsibilities other than deciding whether a given tome could go back on the shelf or needed professional repair. Now every day seemed to bring a different complexity. Andy was always underfoot, his mother was thawing more slowly than he'd expected, Theodore was trying to hold it together as his father died in prison. He missed just watching the fish with Hermione at night. "It helped that my assistant was cute."

"Your _assistant_?" Hermione demanded in faux outrage.

"You didn't think I was your assistant, did you?" he asked.

"So, is that how you two ended up together?" Tracey asked. Ron had taken her hand in what looked like a silent apology and she'd let him so she seemed to have accepted it and Draco hoped with all his heart that he'd be there the day Molly Weasley found out she was now up to three offspring with Slytherin partners.

"Oh, please," said Pansy. "It was inevitable. There they were, alone in dorms with no wards and, let's face it, no one else would have him. Granger took him on as a pity case, which even she wouldn't have done if she weren't on the rebound from ginger and tacky over here."


	234. Chapter 234 (Halloween)

The Halloween Feast crept up as it did every year, hiding behind shorter days and cooler nights until it was just there and it was too late to do anything about it. The afternoon of October 31st, Hermione found herself in a faculty lounge where the professors drank strong tea and tried to fortify themselves for the night ahead. "It was the worst when the Weasley twins were here," Flitwick said, though the twinkle in his eye suggested he had enjoyed every moment of their Halloween antics. He'd loved the pair of them and had even incorporated several of their more notorious innovations in his upper level classes; he promised that by January his students would have a display of fireworks ready to go to entertain the school.

"I beg to differ, Filius," Minerva McGonagall said. "Fred, rest his soul, and George had nothing on the Marauders." Nods around the room agreed with her assessment. It was hard for Hermione to reconcile the scarred men she'd known with the cheerful pranksters her colleagues remembered but she'd heard enough stories by now of the things Sirius and Remus, along with Harry's father and that Peter, had gotten up to while in school to understand why no one had seemed that surprised to find Harry facing down a troll her own first Halloween at Hogwarts. They'd probably all wondered if he'd lured the thing in himself in a plan for mischief that had gone horribly awry.

She'd gotten the impression that Marauder plans had gone off the rails more than once.

Hearing the other teachers reminisce now about 'the year Sirius did this' and 'the year James did that' she felt a familiar moment of rage that Voldemort had killed them all. He was like a smallpox epidemic, she thought, leaving a trail of death and scarred survivors in his wake. If Harry had grown up with the father he'd never met, Hermione thought, staring down into her own tea, well, he wouldn't be sitting in Grimmauld Place tonight while she prepared to take care of children who ate themselves sick on candy.

"Where's Draco," Minerva asked. Hermione told her the man was busy and left it at that. Because he wasn't a Head of House, not even in the odd half way that she was, he hadn't been required to stay the night and deal with the Halloween sugar fallout or patrol the halls to try to head off would be pranksters.

He'd opted to go to Grimmauld Place instead.

"Not the best night for him, I suspect," Draco had said in one of his fits of British understatement. "He mentioned that Ron's been assigned to work that shift so I thought I'd head over."

Hermione had almost smothered him with the force of her hug.

"I can't believe you're choosing to spend Halloween with Potter instead of cleaning up at Hogwarts," Theodore had said.

"Well," Draco had said, "he _is_ the Chosen One."

Hermione smiled now at the memory of how Theodore had thrown a pillow across the room, using magic to add heft to the thing, and how it had knocked Draco down. "What should I be looking for?" she asked the room. "So far no students seem… seem the sort to try anything outrageous."

Minerva peered at her over the rim of her spectacles and said, "That's why we patrol. To make sure none of them become that sort."

Sirius, it would seem, had managed to lure a cow up the steps into Gryffindor Tower one year and everyone had gotten back from the feast to be greeted by mooing, bovine flatulence, and a cow patty in the middle of the rug. That was the night a group of professors, none of whom had started the evening well versed in agricultural practices, learned that cows can go up stairs but that they will not walk down them no matter how nicely you ask. It took three full professors working in tandem to safely float the cow out the largest window in the tower down to the ground. It had farted in Aurora Sinistra's face halfway there, an experience the woman claimed was not one you could forget.

"No," Minerva said, sipping from a glass of tea Hermione began to suspect the woman had laced. "I doubt we'll see pranks on that level tonight, but you can never be too prepared."


	235. Chapter 235 (Halloween Pranks)

Hermione paced along the halls. So far she'd only been bored. She'd sent a pair of Ravenclaws back to their tower for being out planning mischief after curfew, but all they'd been doing was arguing about the placement of the runes they'd meant to hide in a doorway. A quick perusal of the runes in question revealed the students had wanted everyone who passed through the door to end up with blue hair. Alas, or perhaps fortunately, they'd bungled it and their prank would have accomplished nothing.

It almost hurt Hermione not to point out the error in their work. She had her mouth open to explain how they needed lines here, not there, and an extra dot but she'd remembered she was supposed to be the adult just in time and, with a silent apology to the spirits of Remus, Fred, and Sirius, she just sent the students back to bed. They were still arguing when she left them.

She might have murmured the name of a book that would solve their problems under her breath, and they might have looked at her with momentarily widened eyes, but she didn't think she'd need to worry about either of them spilling who had put them on the right track. It seemed wrong to not encourage intellectual curiosity she told herself. This was a school. She was supposed to encourage learning, wasn't she?

She was just about to call it a night when she heard the giggles and she sighed. It had been going so well, too. She rounded the corner, afraid of what she'd find.

She almost had a panic attack when she spotted them. Three students had somehow found or made Death Eaters masks and robes and were mugging in front of a mirror and giggling. Only the giggles and how short the trio was kept her from reaching into her pocket for a vial of Draught of Peace. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded. She snatched the mask off one student and stared at the suddenly mortified face of Andy. Stripping masks from the other two students she revealed Trista and Crina, and it took more control than she had known she had not to slap them all.

"These people," she said, shaking one of the masks, "were evil. They weren't funny or... they wanted to kill people. They did kill people. They aren't a fun lark."

She tossed the mask in her hand onto the floor and flame crept over it, the voiceless, wandless spell shocking and impressing the students into silence as even her disgusted recrimination hadn't.

Hermione Granger, their grown up friend and favorite professor, was angry. She was so angry they huddled together as if numbers could protect them from her fury.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor," she said. Andy gulped. "And you will serve a month of detentions with Professor Malfoy."

"But Quidditch," Andy began before one look at her eyes made him gulp again and stop talking.

"Yes," Hermione said. "Quidditch will have to survive without the aid of a boy so lacking in sense he decided to dress up as a Death Eater for a prank." She turned to the girls. "Fifty points from Slytherin for each of you, for one hundred points total, and you will also be serving detention with Professor Malfoy." The girls paled and nodded and Hermione pointed down the hall. "To your dorm. Now." The girls scurried off and she turned to Andy and said, "I will walk you up to the tower."

He trudged alongside her in silent misery for most of the trip. They were outside the portrait hole when Andy finally said, his voice very small, "I'm really sorry, Professor Granger. I won't go to Nott Manor anymore."

She looked at his face. He was trying not to cry and she couldn't figure out why he'd extrapolate detentions into not being welcome at Theodore's. "Why?" she asked. "That has nothing to do with what you pulled tonight."

"I made a mistake," he said, his eyes on the floor. "You won't want me around any more."

She put a hand under his chin and lifted his face. "Andy," she said. "I'm angry at you, and disappointed, but that doesn't mean you aren't welcome to follow us home. Theodore loves you. The elves adore you. Even Pansy has a kitten for you for Christmas, though if you tell her I told you, I will deny it."

Andy began to shiver and she pulled him into a hug. "I can understand how trying to make something really scary into a joke could make it feel more manageable," she said. "But there are things you just can't do. Ask Draco about how he dressed up as a Dementor one time to scare Harry."

"He did?" Andy asked in obvious disbelief. "But they're like… best friends."

"They weren't always," Hermione said. She let him go and said, "No more Death Eater costumes, Andy, and you'll be at the Manor this weekend for at least one dinner like always."

"But I made a mistake," he said again.

She sighed and brushed a bit of his hair out of his eyes. "Yes," she said. "And a pretty big one, too, but we all still love you. You don't have to be perfect for us to care about you, you know."

Andy gave the Fat Lady the password and she opened up. Before he disappeared he said, Happy Halloween, Hermione. And thanks."

She watched the portrait swing shut and she and the Fat Lady exchanged glances but neither of them said anything and Hermione decided she'd had enough for the night. Any further pranksters could just get away with it. She headed down to her office and its floo so she could go home and see people who were unlikely to have done anything quite as stupid as dress up as Death Eaters for a laugh.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! This chapter of pranks was inspired by reader suggestions (though, I fear, the specific incidents, good and bad, are my own fault.)_**


	236. Chapter 236 (Drarry has some Fun)

"Potter." Draco set the bottle of Muggle whiskey out on the table.

"Malfoy," Harry acknowledged and looked first at the bottle then up at Draco. "Didn't care for what we drank last time?"

Draco snorted. He'd actually rather liked the cheap ale Harry had had on hand. He'd liked it so much he'd ventured out into a Muggle neighborhood to find more. He'd just also discovered this and wanted to share it. "16-year-old Balvenie," he said. "Not that you're likely to appreciate it, of course - pearls before Blast-Ended Skrewts and all that - but start to drink alone and you might have a problem, so here I am."

"On Halloween," Harry noted. "Right."

Neither man acknowledged the importance of the date in Harry's life, or why he might prefer company. Harry just fetched two tumblers and Draco poured the whiskey and they drank in silence until, halfway through his third glass, Harry said, "I think we should go flying."

Draco quirked an eyebrow upward. "Tonight? Right now?"

"Exactly." Harry filled his glass, drank, and said, "We should release a Snitch over London and see who gets it first."

Draco set his glass down. "You want to release a Snitch over Muggle London and fly around after it? Aren't we a bit pissed for that?"

Harry swallowed the rest of his whiskey, coughed, and then said, "Well, if you're scared, Malfoy, just say so."

Draco drained his own whiskey. "You wish, Potter," he said.

Harry had a whole box of Snitches, one of the benefits of living with a professional Quidditch player, and he tossed Draco a jumper against the chilly air, they both grabbed brooms, and they were off. The Snitch seemed delighted to be released, and it hovered in front of Harry's face, beating its wings, before it darted off into the deep blue of the last vestiges of twilight. With a whoop Draco followed it, Harry right behind him, as the golden ball led them on a merry chase above London.

Draco almost caught it as it flew between the towers of Westminster Abbey, but at the last minute he had to pull back lest he impale himself on one of the top spires. He swore and Harry laughed as he jerked ahead of Draco and reached out to grab at the Snitch himself. Their target, however, had already sped away, and they followed through the now dark air. The Snitch went back and forth, weaving a pattern above the streets that the two men - boys, perhaps, at the moment - followed, never quite fast enough.

It wove in and out of the columns in the front of the British Museum and the boys shot up and down as they tried to anticipate the Snitch's moves and cut it off. Later, as they hurried down a residential street keeping lower to the ground, a Muggle woman struggling under the weight of a carved pumpkin that filled her arms and threatened to spill to the ground, gaped at them.

"Shite," Draco yelled as he passed Harry. "We've been seen."

Harry just laughed. "So rule-abiding, Malfoy," he hollered into the wind. "I never would have guessed."

"Bastard," Draco swore, but then the Snitch fluttered in front of his nose as though mocking him, only to fly way up when he reached for it.

"You're supposed to catch it," Harry yelled. ''Not flirt with it."

And they were off again. The Snitch skimmed down the water of the river, so near the surface their toes were at risk of getting wet and, at last, Harry just plunged down so he left a wake as he careened across the surface of the water, but he caught the Snitch in his hand and raised his fist in triumph.

Draco laughed. "Yeah," he said. "But now you're soaked."

Harry just shrugged and the pair sat at the side of the Thames as he handed the now quiescent Snitch to Draco and began pulling off his wet things. "Drying charms work better when you aren't in the clothes," he said by way of explanation. "Not that we always had that option that year we camping, but - "

Draco leaned back and pretended to ogle the other man as he stripped down and bared his arse to the world in the process of drying his clothes.

"Hooligans," a woman muttered as she walked past. "Have some decency."

"And a good evening to you as well, ma'am," Draco said to her back. "Have a good Hallows Eve."

When he got home, still a little pissed and more than a little windswept, Hermione eyed him. "What have you been doing?" she asked. When he told her that he and Harry Potter had gone flying above Muggle London she buried her face in her hands and said, inexplicably. "I was wrong. There was someone with worse judgement tonight than Andy." When Draco started to say something she just held up her hand. "No," she said. "I'm going to go to bed and just hope to Circe we don't get an owl from the Ministry in the morning as a result of this."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all for your many on going kindnesses and such amazing support. I love all your notes._**

 ** _This chapter was prompted by Lioness1988's suggestion._**


	237. Chapter 237 (November Arrives)

Autumn had snuck in before the Halloween Feast and after the candy extravaganza began to make her presence more fully known. The nights went from chilly to cold and more often than not frost lingered on the brown grasses of the school grounds well after the sun rose. Hermione discovered what seemed to be a cursed chill in her office that no amount of warming charms could chase away and Draco spent hours trying to find the source of a draft that seemed to wander from one corner of the room to another.

"I begin to see why the position is cursed," Hermione muttered one day as she slouched down into a huge jumper, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea that was never warm enough. "Everyone ends up with pneumonia and gives up."

Draco laughed and kissed her. "It's not that bad," he said.

"Oh, well, Voldemort isn't sticking out of the back of my head, no," she said.

"And you don't have a penchant for torture quills," he said.

Hermione looked down at the newest pile of essays. "No," she said. "I don't torture the students. Instead they torture me."

"At least you don't have to sit detentions all month with three very sad and endlessly apologetic students," Draco said. He'd been mortified when he heard that three students had dressed up as Death Eaters, and had wanted to throttle Andy. Instead he'd set them all a research project and insisted they consult newspapers and school records, including the detention and class records the Carrows had kept, and write an analysis of the goals and methodology of the Death Eater movement. One of the Carrows had turned out to be very meticulous about detailing every last bit of torture she - or perhaps he - had inflicted on students along with editorializing as to why they'd deserved it.

Draco dreaded reading the final papers.

Hermione was still staring at her own pile of essays and, with a sigh, she picked up the next one. "Once more unto the breach," she muttered.

"Henry V?" Draco asked. "They're that bad?" When she nodded he tweaked the essay out of her hand, returned it to the pile and then picked up the tea pot and set it with a thunk on top of the parchment. "What you need," he said, "is a night out."

"I was supposed to help McGonagall get ready for Diwali," Hermione said.

Draco groaned as dramatically as he could and expressed his uncensored opinion that what she needed to do was let the Headmistress take care of her own diversity initiative. "Look," he said as Hermione began to protest, "it's a great idea to have these days acknowledging all the students who go here, but it is _not your job_ to organize and plan all of them, You aren't even getting paid to be Head of Gryffindor but you're over there more nights than not dealing with whatever crisis du jour your little lions have gotten themselves into. This one got caught sneaking out past curfew and that one is failing Arithmancy and yet another one can't find her way out of a paper bag with directions!" He didn't even want to address Andy.

"Draco," Hermione protested.

He cut her off. She'd been doing this since school began, working herself into a tizzied exhaustion. A discreet chat with Harry at Halloween, as they avoided talking about his parents, before their glorious, and mercifully consequence free, flight above London, had confirmed that it wasn't the first time she'd done it. "She really did read _Hogwarts: A History_ multiple times," Harry had said. "And third year? Not pretty."

Draco wasn't keen on the idea of his fiancée working herself into the kind of state that required extra hours in the day to maintain. It didn't make matters better that he knew she was neglecting things she really cared about to grade these essays he'd argued with her about assigning. "You wanted to be researching wandless magic," he reminded her. "You were interested in the way Sari's mum did housework without a wand and thought nothing of it."

"That is... it's supposed to be incredibly advanced magic," Hermione said, "but there seems to be a wholly different take on it in other cultures. It's just...what you do. Who would use a wand to do the dishes is what her mum asked me. She seemed flabbergasted people used wands for ordinary things."

"And what about the Romanian book?" Draco asked her.

Hermione cast a guilty eye on the ungraded essays. "I'm… I want to do this right," she said. "How many Muggle-born witches have taught at Hogwarts? I feel like if I fail I'm just - "

"How many Death Eaters have taught here?" Draco asked her.

She laughed. "Rather a lot?"

He was tricked into a laugh of his own. "Oh, fine," he said. "Be right again, as usual."

He took the mug out of her hand and tugged her away from the desk with its piles of work and her half-made commitment to help McGonagall prepare for Diwali and pulled her into a hug. "How about we start with dinner," he said. "I know a place in Diagon Alley that we haven't been to in too long." Hermione made a vague sound of protest until he whispered several suggestions in her ear regarding things they could do after dinner - or at the restaurant during dinner if they got a table in a dark corner - and a devilish smirk began to replace the look of worn duty on her face.

Draco took a handful of Floo powder and, right before he tossed it into the fireplace in their office he said, "Hermione?"

"Mmm?"

"Wear a frock to dinner, if you don't mind, and no knickers."

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning! (or evening)_**


	238. Chapter 238 (Slip Dresses & Reparations)

"I got it."

Susan had been flipping through the fashion edition of Witch Weekly with steadily increasing despair when Theo walked into the room. He had the stiff tilt to his shoulders that meant he'd been at Azkaban visiting his father and that she'd want to watch him all night to make sure he didn't pull out a hidden bottle of whiskey from some cupboard. "Got what?" she asked him.

He passed her a sheet of parchment and tweaked the magazine out of her hands. She ran her eyes over the list and sucked in her breath. "He remembered them all?" she asked. This was what she needed to set up the reparations payment. She'd already slipped the confirmation of the ancient Wergild rates into a bill that the Wizengamot had passed without reading too closely. She'd have been outraged at how they could quibble for weeks over a trivial research idea but a detailed budget passed with no discussion if it hadn't benefited her. She suspected they'd all already swapped backroom agreements on how they'd all support one another's pet projects.

Theodore's shrug in response to her question was too casual. "Apparently," he said.

The parchment had a list of names written in a smooth hand, each with a date and a notation as to the blood status of the victim. Susan looked quickly for first her family and didn't find them,then she scanned for other names she knew personally. She saw several. "Do you think this list is complete?" she asked.

"It's long enough to be," Theodore said.

Susan nodded but noted that wasn't exactly an answer. She wondered what it felt like to have your father hand you a list of people he'd murdered and have the list be this long. She wondered if Thoros Nott felt proud of himself. She knew he was sorry his choices had made Theodore's life more difficult, but was he sorry he'd made them or only sorry his side had lost the war. Did he sit in Azkaban and fantasize about a world where his side had won and Theodore was a Dark prince, one of the elite who ruled what he considered the lesser orders with an iron fist? She supposed she'd never know. She looked up at her best friend, her heart aching for him and what he had to live with.

"How can anyone wear this?" Theodore asked, breaking into her thoughts. He waved the magazine under her eyes and she sighed as she turned away from their tragic history to the less serious tragedy of fashion and looked at the featured robes with a sigh. The model had impossibly long legs made longer by heels so high Susan was surprised she could stand in them. Long dark hair fell around a face with cheekbones higher than the heels and, if the model had ever eaten any food with actual fat in it, Susan would be surprised. She looked almost ill she was so thin, but that made the silk thing she had on hang on her beautifully. "I mean, is that a nightgown or something?" Theo pulled the magazine back to his nose to look at the picture more closely. "Maybe a slip? One of those things you wear under proper robes to make sure no one can see through to your knickers?"

"It's a dress," Susan said. "That style is very in right now."

"If you say so," Theodore said. He was about to toss the magazine down when Blaise came up behind him and peered over his shoulder at the picture.

"Cute," he said. "I didn't know Giulia had gotten an editorial job with Witch Weekly. Good for her."

"You know her?" Susan asked in a tight voice.

"Yeah," Blaise said as he flung himself down into a chair. "We dated a few times."

Susan handed the list of Thoros' victims back to him and stood up, gathering her things. "I think I'll go work on some reports in my room," she said. She didn't look at Blaise as she walked out of the room and he eyed her curiously but shrugged after she shut the door behind her.

Blaise yanked the magazine from Theodore after Susan had left and looked at the picture again. "Maybe it's Rosa?" he said. "Maria? Fuck if I know. They all look the bloody same."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all, as always, for your endless support of this story._**


	239. Chapter 239 (The Flying Lesson)

Draco stood on the pitch and looked out at the assembled first years. They'd already fetched brooms from the ones he supplied and some shivered in the fall air. Cold had stopped flirting with the world and had wrapped her arms around it; her breath tickled all their necks as she snuggled up and Draco found himself envying Theodore his giant scarf. The even, grey clouds warned that snow would fall, probably sooner rather than later. None of that had kept any of his flyers away, and, if one or two stomped her feet to warm up her toes, they all stood and waited for him to demonstrate that day's trick. Quidditch captains from all the Houses huddled in the stands and watched. First the Slytherin captain, then the Gryffindor one, and finally all of them had taken to dropping by to watch the kids fly and scout out who they wanted to recruit. Draco's favorite little Hufflepuff daredevil had already been informed she _would_ be trying out the following year. She'd muttered she didn't think her parents would buy her a broom and Draco had yanked on her pony tail and told her not to worry.

It was unusual to have all four captains at the same class, though. Draco supposed his surprise guest had alerted the Gryffindor captain she'd be there.

He clapped his hands to get what little attention had wandered off back and said, "As rumors may have told you, today's a bit odd because I won't be your coach. One of the Holyhead Harpies is here to talk about what it's like to fly at that level and give you a bit of a master class."

Ginny emerged from under Potter's damned invisibility cloak and the kids gaped for a moment and then clustered around her, the cold forgotten, as they asked questions of the war hero and professional Quidditch player.

Draco watched them and hoped she planned to keep it reasonably tame. Her habit of flying at walls as fast as she could served her well, but he'd rather not be escorting all his kids to Pomfrey. They weren't _all_ brilliant flyers. Some of them, no matter how hard they tried, still looked like Hermione on a broom: terrified, annoyed, and clumsy all at once.

It really did astound him how Hermione managed to make a simple thing like riding a broom look like walking backward along a high wall while blindfolded and carrying an angry cat.

"Where did you come from?" one girl asked Ginny. "You just appeared!"

"Oh," she said. "Invisibility cloaks are handy for making a dramatic appearance." Draco grinned at her, expecting a conspiratorial smile back. The way she smirked, however, made his stomach clench. They hadn't. He was telling himself there was no way when Potter pulled the cloak off himself and grinned over at him.

The response was immediate and predictable. Ginny was a treat but _Harry Potter_ was a legend. The kids abandoned Ginny at once to flock to the Chosen One's side and they besieged him with questions about flying, about the war, about things as absurd as had he really caught the Snitch with his mouth once.

Draco took a step away from the fray and felt his smile get tighter. Potter laughed with the kids, refused to sign autographs, and soon had them following him through the sky on a game of chase and snag that included even the slowest students. That was good, Draco told himself as he stood alone on the ground, adjusted his own, reasonably-sized, green scarf, and braced his shoulders against the cold of the day. It was good to make sure all the kids felt included and now he didn't need to worry about Ginny pushing them too hard any anyone getting hurt.

They'd probably all write home and tell their parents how Harry Potter had come up to Hogwarts as a surprise guest teacher for their extra flying class. This was the sort of special thing they'd remember for years.

It was good. It was.

Draco watched Harry Potter teach his class. He'd pull back to give a tip to a slower student, and he somehow got the little Ravenclaw over her fear of getting too close to anyone else in the air. He was a talented teacher. Draco could see how the man had run an entire underground Defense training class and been just as successful as he'd always been at everything else. Potions. Quidditch. Winning a war. Teaching firsties to fly. There really wasn't anything Potter couldn't do.

Draco smiled and waved up as one student swooped down to cheer in delight at how much fun she was having. He rubbed at his arm before he shoved his hands down into his pockets and waited for this to be over.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all for everything :)_**


	240. Chapter 240 (A Confrontation)

Hermione walked into their en suite as Draco was putting the plaster on. She stepped up behind him where he stood at the counter and wrapped her arms around his waist and asked, "Nervous about tonight?"

"Tonight?" It took Draco a minute to realize what she was talking about and then he shook his head. "No, dinner with my parents will be fine. I'm sure my mother will be polite and chilly as usual, but she's unlikely to… it'll be fine." He could feel her rest her head against his shoulder and he sighed. "Ginny came to practice at Hogwarts today," he said.

Hermione made a slightly perplexed "mmm" sound and Draco looked into the mirror above the sink. He looked tired. There were shadows under his eyes and his hair refused to do anything other than fling itself about. He was pretty sure he had dirt smudged on one cheek. "She brought Potter," he said.

Hermione waited for a moment and then said, her voice hovering between a question and a statement, "You didn't know he was coming."

"All the kids were so excited," Draco said. He tried to hide everything and just let himself be wholly neutral. It had been great of Potter to take time off from work to go spend a day with a bunch of students. "I'm sure you can picture it. They rushed over and wanted to know all sorts of things." He began to carefully put the plasters back in their tin and then set the tin back on the shelf, the tiny, new blade tucked away in the case. Every movement was controlled and precise and not dramatic. "They had the best time they've had all year."

"Draco," Hermione began but he shook his head.

"He's the hero, he's the favorite. He always will be. It doesn't matter what I do. I could… it doesn't matter. It was really great of him to come up. It meant a lot to the kids. I'll be sure to thank him." He closed his eyes and then stepped away from her, pulling himself out of her grasp. "I probably should take a shower before I get dressed for dinner. I'm sure I smell of the pitch and sweat and my mother prefers people get cleaned up."

Hermione nodded. "I have an errand I need to run," she said. "Will be you be okay until I get back?"

He shrugged. "I always am," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

She flung open the door to Grimmauld Place. Kreacher came scurrying out of whatever cranny he'd been incubating seeds in and the curtains over Walburga's portrait stirred in the currents left in the wake of Hermione's passage, but she ignored both of them other than to think she'd like to see Walburga's portrait try to yell at her right then. She'd burn the damn thing off the wall.

She found Harry in the kitchen with Ginny, walked up to him, and slapped him across the face. It might not have been as hard as she could but it wasn't a tap and the sound made Kreacher, still following her, stop in shock in the doorway.

"What the _fuck?"_ Harry demanded, his hand at his cheek. "Have you lost your mind, Hermione? What the bloody hell was that about?"

"You had to take that too," she said.

Harry gaped at her but Ginny let out a little noise that made it clear she knew what Hermione was angry about.

"It's all he has," she said. "His mother's a fu… a bitch who won't acknowledge our relationship, most people want him in Azkaban, and McGonagall got a barrage of owls when she let him teach. I think she still gets a couple every week because he's the villain of the story, after all. He's spent more money on brooms for those kids than he's earned as a teacher and you had to go and take that away from him because you've still got some bloody schoolboy rivalry to win."

Harry looked from Ginny, who wouldn't meet his eyes, to Hermione, and back again. "What are you talking about?" he asked at last.

"Flying," Hermione said. "Teaching those kids to fly. That's what he has, it's his redemption, it's what makes him feel like everyone doesn't hate him and you…just… you had to go and take that away." She could feel herself deflate now that she'd lit into him and she just felt tired. Draco hurting, Harry so centered on his own plans he didn't think how they'd effect other people, and next up dinner with Narcissa. She wanted a drink. She wanted to crawl into bed and never come out.

"I just went up for one day," Harry protested, but a hint of guilt had started to creep into his posture. "It's not like I'm going to start teaching."

"No," said Hermione. She was so tired. What was the point, really? Sometimes she really wanted to give up and stop trying to fix things and instead tell people to go to hell. "You just reminded him that if you did start to teach you'd _still_ be the one everyone wanted. Perfect Harry Potter, making sure Draco knows he'll never be more than the also ran. Sure, lessons with him are great, but who cares how much of his heart and soul he's poured into those kids, because Harry Potter will always be a bigger draw. You'll always win. And you knew that and you went up there and rubbed his nose in that today anyway." She took a deep breath and turned to go. She needed to take a shower before she spent the night pretending she cared, or maybe that she didn't care, about Narcissa. "Just… fuck you, Harry."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all. You know why._**


	241. Chapter 241 (Drinks with Narcissa)

In retrospect it probably hadn't been the best night for a dinner with Draco's parents, though, of course, that everyone was already at the edge of what they could take might have, in the long run, brought them all together faster. That didn't make the actual evening less unpleasant. It was, in a word, dreadful.

Hermione came back from her confrontation with Harry, showered, grabbed her things, and she and Draco apparated to Malfoy Manor. He'd cleaned himself up and had one of his creamy soft button down shirts on and no hint that he'd had a miserable day at school on his face. He was the perfect little scion as long as you didn't look too closely. She still simmered with frustrated rage, but she gritted her teeth as they knocked on the door and told herself she could be as gracious as Susan.

It was a pity she ended up channeling Pansy instead.

Narcissa Malfoy opened the door and led them to a charming room that had clearly been freshly painted. All the furniture had been refinished. All the upholstery had been redone. It was an immaculate space, as washed free of psychic residue as any place could be. Hermione looked at the beautiful sofa with its delicately carved wooden arms and feet and its luxurious cream silk fabric and wondered what monsters had sat on it in the past. Had Death Eaters stretched their feet out and chortled about what they'd do to their victims? Had they sipped tea and tsked about the filth invading their society? Had Voldemort lounged there and watched people be tortured for his amusement? What had driven Narcissa Malfoy to make the room over so completely?

"Thank you," she said as the older woman offered her a cocktail. "Whatever Draco is having would be fine."

She sipped the drink - some kind of expensive fire whiskey she supposed - and chatted as amiably as she could while Narcissa used her flawless social training to guide conversation from one light topic to another. The trivial nature of the chit chat made it that much more shocking when Narcissa put down her drink and said, her voice calm and melodious, "Is there anything you want to tell me, Draco?"

His eyes shuttered at once. "Not really," he said.

"You're fine?" she pressed.

He took a sip of the amber liquid in his tumbler and said, his voice betraying nothing, "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Work is fine?"

"Yes."

"Theodore is fine?"

"Last I checked, he was, yes." Draco took another sip. "You could ask him yourself if you wished. I'm sure he'd obey a summons to appear and converse."

Narcissa shook her head and took a sip of her own drink then crossed and recrossed her ankles. "So there's nothing at all you wish to tell me?"

"Not particularly, no."

"What are you after?" Hermione set her drink down and looked at her future mother-in-law. "I don't have the energy for these games after today, so just come out and ask what you're hinting at. If it's whether he's moved on from embarrassing, filthy me, the answer is no. Yes, McGonagall still gets hate mail about her choice to hire him, but he's probably the most popular teacher in that place and she knows it, so he's not going anywhere unless he wants to leave."

"Hardly the most popular," Draco said.

"Most popular," Hermione repeated. She smiled at him and he caught the way her eyes crinkled with a hint of love and his own mouth softened in return. "More so than me, certainly."

"Malfoys have always been well-liked," Narcissa said. "As have Blacks."

"As have teachers who listen to their students and engage with them and… it's because he gives a shite, not because of what his last name is."

As the words exited her mouth Hermione reflected that perhaps alcohol had been a bad idea.

"I realize it's probably hard for an outsider to appreciate the weight the old names carry - " Narcissa began.

"Oh, give it a rest," Hermione said, the words clipped and rude. She stood up. "I've had the superiority of your damn class system drummed into me since I was eleven. A bloody foreigner from beyond the beyond who didn't even speak English would have a hard time missing how much you people worship your family trees." She took a deep breath. "The kids like him - the kids _adore_ him - because he pays attention. They don't give a flying fu - "

"Hermione," Draco said.

She stopped.

"I just don't want you hurting yourself," Narcissa said. There was a long pause as Draco's fingers tightened on his glass and Hermione froze, her plan to storm out, go home, and take a long bath with bubbles and a book with no redeeming literary merit melting away.

"Excuse me?" Draco asked her.

"I overheard that Healer at the memorial service," Narcissa said. "Her and the friend of yours with all the kneazles that I invested in - they said you…you…you _hurt_ yourself."

"Oh, fuck." Hermione sank back down into her chair. "Dammit, Pansy."

"Everyone knew but me, I see," Narcissa said.

Draco rolled up his sleeve and held his arm out with a sigh. A hint of blood had seeped through one of the fresh plasters and Narcissa went white when she saw it. "It's not a…." He sighed again. "I'm fine," he said. "You don't need to worry." He reached over to Hermione and laced his fingers through hers. "I'm okay."

"You aren't," Narcissa said. "Not if you're cutting yourself. We'll get a good mind healer and you can start - "

"He's fine," Hermione said. The words stopped Narcissa mid-sentence. "We are functional adults. If he wanted a mind healer, he'd have one."

"I really don't," Draco said. "I do realize this is a sub-optimal coping mechanism. I don't need a professional to confirm it."

"But - "

"And I very rarely do it anymore," he said. "Hermione helps tremendously. Living in Nott Manor with friends helps. Today was just… it was a rather difficult day."

"But it's a terrible thing to - "

"Says the woman who thinks fixing the upholstery will make her own problems go away." Hermione stood up again, reached into her bag, and pulled out the book on Romanian wandless cleaning magic she'd brought over as a peace offering. She threw it down on the table in front of Narcissa. "Have fun trying to scrub away Voldemort, but don't pretend it's any different." She could feel her heart race and her hands were shaking and she had to exercise more control than Narcissa was likely to appreciate to say to Draco, wracked with guilt she had to leave him to this on his own but unwilling to break down in front of this woman, "I need to go home. Have a nice meal with your parents."

After Hermione fled, Narcissa made a displeased noise and Draco said, his own voice level, "She gets anxiety attacks. And if you want me in your life, you will accept her."

"She's - "

"Mother."

Narcissa took a breath. "It was nice of her to bring me this book. She seems like a very thoughtful young woman."

"She is," Draco agreed.

"And not like the girl with too many kneazles."

"No," Draco agreed. "We just have the one."

"That's good," Narcissa said. "One pet is reasonable." She reached her hand over to him. "I love you very much, Draco."

"I love you,too, Mum," he said.

"I wish you didn't," she began.

"Me too," he said. "But I do."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - *hearts* for all of you._**


	242. Chapter 242 (Harry Comes Over)

When Draco stepped inside Nott Manor, Theodore was waiting for him. He must have looked apprehensive because Theodore said without preamble, "Hermione's fine. She came home, took a Draught, bitched about your mother, and then went to bed."

"Then what is it?" Draco asked.

Theodore shrugged. "Not sure. Potter's in the library."

Draco gritted his teeth. He couldn't tell if he wanted to scratch his own skin off at that news or just start throwing up. "How did he get in?" he asked to stall for time. "I thought the place was warded."

"He showed up with Kreacher and the elves all had some kind of conference and then they let him in."

"Fuck."

Draco sank down into a chair and wondered if it would be unmanly to just start to cry right here in the foyer. He'd had enough. This day had been too much already and whatever had brought Potter here was something he'd really like to put off until tomorrow. Maybe the man had brought over a snitch with a comment about he thought perhaps Draco would like to have one since he couldn't ever catch them, or maybe it would be a bundle of fan letters charmed to announce "Potter Wins" whenever he was on the verge of falling asleep.

"Just… go figure out what he wants so he'll leave," Theodore said and Draco nodded. It still took him a while to pull himself out of the chair and trudge through the ridiculously large manor to get to the library.

Potter was standing by one of the windows, gazing at it as though he could see out into world or, Draco thought, just admiring his own reflection. Draco shut the door behind him and said, "I wanted to thank you for coming up to Hogwarts today. The kids were really excited to meet you. I didn't get a chance to do it after your visit and - "

"Oh, shut it," Harry said. He turned and Draco fought to keep from crossing his arm defensively. "I'm a ruddy arsehole and you shouldn't feel obligated to thank me for being a dick."

"I'm a little unclear here," Draco said as the world spun and rearranged itself. "Are you an arsehole or a dick?"

"Both," Harry said. He flung himself down onto one of the leather couches and Draco was struck by how miserable the man looked. "Hermione lit into me, you know. She's got a mean swing to her arm when she's pissed."

Draco edged down onto the couch next to Harry. "Yes," he said. "I am aware."

"I didn't… it was just supposed to be funny. I thought you'd be maybe a little pissed but that you'd come up and fly with me." Harry sounded almost hurt, Draco thought, which was bloody rich. "I didn't think you'd feel like I was… I wasn't trying to show you up."

"I appreciate that," Draco said.

He realized he sounded stiff and too British by half but he really just wanted Potter to leave. "Thanks for coming over to - "

"What the fuck?"

Harry's eyes were fastened on the plaster and Draco realized he hadn't rolled his sleeve back down after sharing with his mother. It was, apparently, sharing night all around. He yanked the fabric down to cover his Mark and the cuts and the blood-stained plaster and said, "As I was saying, thank you for coming over, but you really didn't need to - "

"How often?"

Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Was this because of today?"

"I'd really like you to - "

Harry grabbed his wrist. "I have nightmares," he said. "I could see from inside him. Did Hermione ever tell you that? I'd get his view of his world and I could feel his emotions and I have dreams where it's still happening." Draco yanked his arm away and opened his mouth to tell Potter he was terribly sorry but they all had problems. "I see him killing everyone I love and laughing."

"And you wake screaming," Draco said. "I get it."

"No," Harry said. "I never scream. I learned long before Hogwarts that screaming just made things worse. There's no one you can count on and no one you can trust and you just have to do everything yourself."

"I'm sorry for that," Draco said, another piece of Potter's childhood falling into place, "But - "

"We were _friends_ ," Harry said. He sounded desperate. "Don't… almost no one gets it, but you do, and I'm sorry I showed up and made you feel like shite. Ginny told me it was a bad… but I told her after Halloween and what you, what we… that you'd know it was just, it wasn't… I didn't think you'd react that way, that was all. It wasn't… I wasn't trying to be malicious."

Draco let out a shuddering breath. "Did she really hit you?"

Harry shrugged and some of the tension he'd been holding seemed to disappear. "Well it was a slap and not a punch so I don't know if it counts."

"Counts," Draco said. "Do you really see…?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I've dreamt myself as him killing Ginny, Ron, Hermione." He met Draco's eyes. "You."

"I'm touched," Draco said.

Harry shrugged again. "Well, I've also dreamt him murdering pink sheep so don't be too flattered."

Draco laughed at that and somehow everything was okay again.


	243. Chapter 243 (Hermione Wakes Up)

When Hermione woke up, Draco had propped himself up on one elbow and had been watching her. "How are you?" he asked.

She considered. Her head hurt. She'd probably taken a slightly larger dose of Sleeping Draught than had been a good idea and she still felt woozy. She had a pile of essays to cope with sitting in her bag, and McGonagall had suggested maybe she should organize a school-wide Chanukah event since she'd not contributed to Diwali in any way. She had to plan a meeting with the parents of a student who had been caught trying to run an illegal rat fighting club which would likely be unpleasant as the parents had been big donors to the rebuilding fund. She still hadn't done any real research into the way different cultures used wandless magic, especially in domestic ways, that no one in wizarding Britain seemed to consider. Theodore's father was still dying and still in prison. Her best friend had spent the day before rubbing her fiancé's nose in how he, Harry, was beloved in a way Draco never would be. And, worst of all, she'd fled dinner with her soon to be mother-in-law on the cusp of an anxiety attack after screeching at her and throwing a book down like a proverbial gauntlet.

She'd been better.

"I'm fine," she said. "A little busy but I'll get it all worked out." She closed her eyes again. "I'm sorry I left last night. That must have been uncomfortable for you."

She could feel him shift so he was closer to her. "I'll live," he said. "It gave me a chance to tell my mother a few things she needed to hear."

"Still," she began.

"She needs to stop," Draco said. "I think she'll try now."

Hermione didn't think that was the case, but she didn't want to argue with him.

"So," he said, "more to the point, you went and hit Potter?"

Her eyes opened and her jaw dropped and she stared at him. "He came over last night," Draco said. "Sat and waited until I got back from explaining to my mother that I didn't plan to either kill myself or leave you using small words and he apologized."

"Harry?" Hermione asked. "He came over here?" The idea that Harry had come and waited for Draco so he could make things right felt like a wave sliding out, leaving undisturbed sand behind it. One thing was washed away. One thing was smooth and clean again.

"Elves let him in," Draco confirmed.

She sat up and began to push the blankets back. The room was so bright and that confirmed she really had overdone it on the Sleeping Draught. As she crossed the room to get dressed, she was already planning out how she could juggle essays and preparing for the parent meeting and maybe read a little in one of her books while she ate lunch at her desk when Draco said, "Marry me."

She stopped where she stood. "We're already engaged," she said. She didn't move and the sun shone through the windows with the cold brilliance of late fall. She knew there would be a breakfast laid out downstairs and Susan and Blaise would be circling one another and Percy would be reading the paper and Theodore would be watching his lover as he drank coffee. They'd created a life and a family. "I said yes. You don't need to ask again."

"I know you wanted a long engagement," he said. "I know you said we were young. I know I agreed. I just… marry me. We know we aren't ending things. We know this is forever. Give me the binding vows and the public promise. Let me give you my name and my wealth."

She set the palms of her hands on the dressing table and looked into her own eyes in the mirror. They were the same eyes as her father, a man who didn't know her. A man who would never know her. She had the same shape to her mouth her mother had had. Her mother, who was enjoying her childless life in Australia.

"I just always thought my parents – " she began, and then stopped.

"I know," Draco said. He'd gotten up and moved so he was behind her and she leaned against him. "I wish I could make that better."

"Some things aren't fixable," she whispered. No mum. No dad. Molly hated her. Narcissa despised her. Who would she have to their wedding?

"Marry me," Draco said again. "When the school year is over."

One fat tear ran down her cheek as she nodded yes.

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - You know who's fabulous and lovely? You are. Thank you for using your time to read my story._**


	244. Chapter 244 (Susan Gets New Shoes)

Susan dumped the bags of shoes - who knew there were that many types of shoes - on her bed and stared at them in dismay.

"Have fun?" She turned and smiled wanly at Theodore where he hovered in her doorway and he sighed. She obviously hadn't. By the time she'd gone back to looking at the bags he'd come up behind her and wrapped his arms around her and let her lean against him.

"I'm just not good enough," she said. "I don't dress right and I don't have the right shoes, and - "

"I think if you don't have the right shoes by now, the right shoes don't exist."

She laughed a little at Theodore's rather wry assessment of the vast number of shoe boxes she'd returned with. Blaise had hauled her into London after telling her they both needed time away from Draco and his endless discussions of their soon to be wedding and Hermione and her equally endless piles of essays and he knew just the thing. He'd taken her to store after store and when she'd tried to object she couldn't afford these kinds of shoes - who could afford these kinds of shoes? - he'd acted insulted and told her the only way he had of getting back at his endless ream of step-fathers was spending their money and he was running out of things to buy.

She'd suspected there was a little truth under the posturing and so had let him buy her things even though it made her uncomfortable.

They'd had lunch at a restaurant she felt intimidated by the moment she entered. Chic ladies who lunched sat at tables with fresh flowers and white linen and all she'd been able to think was that they didn't look like they ever ate so why where they in a restaurant?

There had been a lot of salad choices on the menu and even though she'd really wanted something substantial after being dragged to store after store she'd caved to the way the eyes of the host had rested on her hips when she and Blaise walked in and had instead ordered something with lettuce and a sprinkling of goat cheese and some sliced apples. It had been fine. The whole day had been fine, and now look at all these shoes. She'd have the best shoes of anyone at work. She had great shoes now.

She'd never really cared about shoes.

"Was Blaise a dick?" Theodore asked as he let her go and stepped back. "Did he make you feel like you - "

"No," she hurried to say. Blaise had been a perfect gentleman. He'd held doors and been gallant and if she hadn't known it was just the way he was with everyone she'd have felt special. But Blaise flirted with shoe saleswomen and waitresses and random women on the street. He dated models. She was just a project he was using to spite his stepfather and fill up time. It was fine. She was fine. She didn't need to be special. "He was very nice," she added.

Theodore snorted at that and she looked at him in surprise. "I've known Blaise since we were eleven," he said by way of explanation. "He's not nice. He's a self-centered, arrogant prick."

Susan shrugged. "He was nice enough today," she said.

"Yes," Theodore said. He drew the word out and she looked at him, suddenly worried he was getting the wrong idea.

"He's not after sex," she said. "It's not like that." After her last year at Hogwarts she could see why Theodore would worry his friend might make assumptions about her availability.

"I know he's not," Theodore said. The words were quiet and maybe even amused and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm not exactly his type," she said. She glanced over at herself in the mirror. Rubenesque was the way one of her lovers at Hogwarts had described her. "Curvy" another had said. She knew they were polite words for 'too fat to be pretty'. It was like saying a girl had a nice face or a great personality. Her eyes fell from her own reflection to the girl on the cover of Witch Weekly. She wasn't Rubenesque. She was slender and willowy and all angles and legs and everything everyone wanted. It would have been hard to find a photograph of a girl less like her.

Blaise had said her name was Giulia. He _knew_ her. He'd _dated_ her.

No, she, Susan Bones, was not his type at all.

Theodore followed the direction of her gaze and he sighed but he didn't say anything else.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Good day!**


	245. Chapter 245 (Questions About Andy)

Andy ran past them, almost knocking a lamp over on his journey from floo to kitchens and Blaise muttered, "I thought it was a fucking boarding school, why is that kid here all the time?" Everyone mostly ignored him, though Theodore raised his head and looked though the door where the boy had disappeared with a speculative look on his face.

At last he turned to Percy and said, "I was thinking about something your mother said."

Percy's smile became more strained and he said, "Really?" Things Molly had said rarely led to happy conversations these days.

"Don't you think it's a little _strange_ that his father lets Andy just come over here all the time when he's never even met me? He was here much of last summer, he's here multiple times a week. Would your parents have let you go off and stay at some strange man's house all the time?"

Hermione and Draco, who had come into the room after Andy stopped and exchanged glances and Hermione set her bag down, a troubled look stealing over her face.

Percy set his quill down and his own gaze joined Theodore's. "We weren't encouraged to mingle with anyone outside our own family," he said.

"I still just think of myself as just another student, not an adult," Hermione said, "but you're right. My parents would never have allowed that."

They all looked at Draco who said, simply, "Never."

"My father only permitted me to socialize with children whose parents he knew and whose views he approved of," Theodore said. "I had considered that maybe he was unusual because," he hesitated and they all knew he was trying to find a way to express that perhaps it had been his father's aristocratic snobbery mixed with blood purism that had limited his own childhood social circle.

"No," Susan said, rescuing his from having to go on. "You're right. This is strange." She looked at Blaise who shrugged.

"My mother would have been - and was - grateful when I took myself off and stayed out of her hair."

The six young adults looked at one another, unsure, until Theodore said, "Well, I guess we go meet him and introduce ourselves."

They decided, after some discussion, that Theo and Hermione should go alone. Andy's father was a Muggle so, even though his late wife had been a witch he might be more comfortable with a Muggle-born than two purebloods who were bound to get myriad tiny aspects of Muggle social interaction wrong. Theo had to go, of course, because it was his home Andy had been spending so much time at.

"I hope," Hermione said, hesitating as they stood on the doorstep outside a small house in a Muggle neighborhood with tidy lawns and immaculate hedges, "I hope it's not like a Harry thing. I hope he's just been assuming this is how things are done in the Wizarding world and didn't want to see gauche by asking to meet you."

Theodore nodded and rapped on the door. The small man who opened his peered out at them through narrow eyes but ushered them in with enough civility that Hermione's hopes this was just a case of a misunderstood culture clash blossomed. They withered and the petals of her good opinion dropped to the floor when the man's polite face became closed at the mention of his son.

"He's off at boarding school," the man said. When Hermione explained that she knew that, that she was one of his teachers, but they'd wanted to introduce themselves because his son spent so much time with them and they wanted to alleviate any concerns he might have that the boy wasn't welcome, the man shook his head. "I want nothing more to do with your world," he said. "Take him in if you like; he belongs with his own kind. Marrying Elisa was the biggest mistake of my life and if I had to do it over again... now I have this boy to raise, and he's not like me, but I'll do my duty. You won't see me raise a hand to him and he'll have the things he needs. I know my responsibility and I'll not shirk it." He took a deep breath. "But I don't think of him as mine. He's Elisa's and she's gone, and, as soon as he's of age, he will be too, and I'll be the happier for it." He walked back to the door and held it open. "It was very nice to meet you. Have a nice afternoon."

Theodore stood on the stoop again and looked at Hermione. "Well," he said.

"Well," she agreed. They waited in silence as if they'd find an answer in the cold air. None appeared.

"I've got time," Theodore said at last. "I think I might head up to Azkaban if you don't mind going home alone."

Hermione gave him a quick hug and they went their separate ways, each lost in their own thoughts.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning :)_**


	246. Chapter 246 (Wergild, they did)

"I have the fee calculated," Susan said. "The bill with the line about reapproving all extant wergild rates passed and I took the list your father provided and calculated the cost and we finally have a date for the petition hearing."

Theodore took the parchment she slid across the table and looked at the number. It seemed low. It was low. All the evil his father had done and he'd be able to buy it off for less than the cost of a week in Paris. It made him feel ill. Susan must have read the expression on his face because she said, softly, "I know it's not right, but he's dying. We tried getting him released to the hospital fairly and no one would cooperate."

"It's so little," he said as Percy reached over and plucked the document from him. "We'll end up springing a bunch of racist murderers for what most of them would consider pocket change."

Percy squinted a little at the total and then moved to the window and pushed the sheer curtain aside so full sunlight fell on the paper in his hand. "It's not exactly pocket change," he said.

Theodore flushed. Sometimes he forgot that Percy had grown up poor. The man moved with such ease in the halls of power you'd think he had been born to it. Percy tossed the paper back onto the table in front of Theodore and said, "I wouldn't worry about anyone else getting out. I suspect one petition that can't legally be refused will be all we get through before the Wergild loophole gets closed."

"Shall we do this?" Susan asked.

Draco made sure not to be present at the petitioning hearing. The sight of another Death Eater, even a legally forgiven one, was deemed bad politics. Hermione, Neville, and Harry, however, all stood with bland smiles on their faces as Susan submitted the petition with Percy as her co-petitioner. Every i was dotted. Every t was crossed. The petition was legally flawless and the Court accepted it with expressions on the faces of the three sitting judges that suggested they were choking on their own words. One took it upon himself to inform Susan that her aunt must be rolling in her grave.

"She would be ashamed," he said, "to see you using your position and knowledge to aid people such as Mr. Nott."

Susan didn't budge. "I think, rather," she said, "she would be ashamed the august body she was so proud of belonging to had given in to hate and fear to the extent that it has."

The words sat there for a moment before the judge dismissed the case in a cold fury. Susan took the paper granting the release of one Thoros Nott from Azkaban upon the payment of the calculated Wergild and left a pile of money on the table in front of her. The judges seethed but Susan gathered her things with deliberation and smiled with professional ease at them as she exited the courtroom.

Once in the hall she handed the order to Percy who took it, made eye contact with Theodore. "We'll be waiting at St. Mungo's," Susan said.

"What if they don't - ?" Theodore began but she shook her head.

"Padma can admit anyone she wants to her research facility. She has an entire private room set up, courtesy of Malfoy galleons and St. Mungo's greed. You just get him there and we'll be waiting."

"I'm going with you," Hermione said.

"Me too." Harry smirked at Theodore Nott's befuddled expression. "It's obnoxious, but I've noticed people are less likely to lose paperwork when I'm right there."

He was right. The guards scowled and looked threatening and suggested that perhaps they should give the facility time to process the paperwork until Harry Potter, hero and Auror, said that would be fine but he'd just need the names and identification of each of the guards on duty and, naturally, they did understand this was a court order and they'd be personally held responsible if anything unfortunate occurred.

Within ten minutes a thin and shaking Thoros Nott was delivered into their keeping. He and Theodore nodded at one another and everything seemed to be going smoothly until the elderly man ran his eyes over Harry Potter with his unmistakable scar and Hermione Granger with her well-known bushy hair and asked, his chapped lips curled in a sneer, "What's this filth doing here?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'd like to thank the amazing MaryRoyale, who made a good stab at converting recorded historical Wergild rates to modern and magical currency, and, as Susan did slip the Wergild rates into the bill with no adjusting for inflation, it's low. To quote MaryRoyale, "They don't even use shillings anymore, but 200 shillings (the wergild for a free man) would have been 10 pounds. That's 2 galleons according to JKR - she's said that a galleon is equal to 5 pounds. That would make a nobleman (wizard?) worth 1200 shillings, which would be 60 pounds, which would work out to 12 galleons."_**


	247. Chapter 247 (Settling in at St Mungos)

Padma met them at the door to her lab and escorted them through to the small, private room at the back where she settled the fragile and cantankerous Thoros Nott into the hospital bed without fuss on her part. The patient scowled and glared and did his utmost, or so it seemed, to offend everyone within range of his voice, but Padma and the mediwitch at her side ignored all of his comments even as Theodore looked as though he wished to sink into the floor in shame. He kept muttering apologies for his father to Harry and Hermione until Harry clapped him on the back, told him he'd heard far worse, and departed to return to the Ministry.

Hermione wrapped her arm around Theodore's waist and he leaned into her for support and watched as his father seemed to become smaller as if he were going to be swallowed by the bed. Thoros questioned Padma about her blood status and, upon being reassured that she was, indeed, a pureblood, he became gracious and complimented her upon both her pretty eyes and her choice to pursue a career. His late wife, he said, had wanted to go into medicine but at the time that had been unheard of for pureblood girls from good families to get paid jobs; only charity work had been deemed appropriate. He was pleased to see times had changed and she could use her talents.

He glanced at his son, standing with his arm around Hermione, and narrowed his eyes.

"I'm not sure we've ever been properly introduced," Hermione said. "I'm Hermione Granger." She didn't hold her hand out and Thoros made no indication he would have taken it.

"You'll not get your Mudblood claws into my son," he said. "He's got a partner, a boy from a good family, so you're barking up the wrong tree, missy."

Theodore's hand nearly spasmed on Hermione's waist but she didn't respond to the venom. Instead she said, "Percy is a lovely man. I'm very happy he and Theodore are together."

"Hermione is like a sister to me," Theodore said. He threw the words out there as if daring his father to object, and Thoros' mouth twisted at that but before he could say anything Draco pushed the door open and entered the room. He let out an exhale after he shut the door behind him and ran a hand through his hair. His tension was obvious.

Padma glanced up at him but didn't stop going through her series of health checks and spells and consulting with her assistant in an undertone. The pair of them had already made a list of basic health charms and what order they needed to be done in as well as what potions they needed to order from the pharmacy.

"There's a crowd outside," Draco said. "Susan and Percy are giving a statement to the press." He met Hermione's eyes. "Rita Skeeter is already there."

Hermione muttered under her breath and he rested a hand on her shoulder. "Percy can handle her," he said though he didn't sound sure. "When I left them, he was talking about not letting ourselves become a mirror of what we fought out of fear, and Susan was touting her compassionate release for all ailing prisoners agenda. I think… I know they'll do a decent job of controlling the narrative."

"Your father would be ashamed," Thoros began, his eyes on the way Draco interacted with Hermione.

Draco glanced over at him. "I'm afraid not, sir," he said with absolute courtesy. "My father quite likes Hermione and is fully supportive of our engagement."

"Times have changed," Padma said from the bedside where she worked, "as you yourself just said, Mr. Nott."

"Not that much," he said with a feeble shake of his head. "Not enough for that to be acceptable. Even animals don't do that."

Draco stiffened and Theodore looked at the floor and Hermione's smile became more strained.

Padma looked up at the three standing there and seemed to make a decision. "You all need to clear out for a few minutes," she said. "We need to do a series of treatments and medical policy says they should be done in private. Afterwards he'll probably be a little tired and Theodore may come back in to sit with him but you two should go home."

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, lovely and wonderful people, for your many kindnesses. This is not a pleasant arc._**


	248. Chapter 248 (A Decision is Made)

When Padma waved him back into the room after she'd done her treatments, Theodore pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. Percy slipped in behind him and stayed in the softer, battered institutional armchair resting against the wall. Thoros' hospital room was white and clean and lacking any kind of window. Theodore had thought that seemed grim when he had first seen it. Now he was grateful. The crowds outside the hospital already carried signs reading things such as 'No Mercy for Killers' and 'Justice for the Victims' and he didn't want to see them or hear their chanting as he sat at his father's side.

"How do you feel?" he asked, taking his father's frail hand in his own. Age spots dotted the back of the white skin and, even in the dim light of the room, the bones stood out, casting shadows on the withered flesh that contained them.

"I am quite well," Thoros said. "Pain free. Your Healer friend did her work and things are quite good." He closed his eyes and Theodore swallowed hard. "She's a very talented young woman. I can see why Lucius has decided to sponsor her, especially given what a disappointment Draco must be." Theodore could feel his father's hand tighten around his. "I do like your young man, Theodore. Take him to your mother's grave. Bury me beside my Calla and perhaps I'll find her again on the other side of the Veil."

"You aren't going to die," Theodore said. "Not now. Not today. We just… you'll be fine. You're weak, of course, after… but you'll be fine. Padma will do her thing and we'll figure out what you need and… it will be fine. You'll come back to the Manor and this spring we'll walk to mother's grave together."

Thoros squeezed his hand again. "Miss Patil told me what she recommended," he said. "It was a Muggle treatment for some disease I probably picked up from one of the vermin I killed, made worse by my time in… made worse by inattention."

Theodore flinched. He could hear the refusal in his father's voice.

"Marry your young man. Adopt a son," Thoros said. "Keep the family going. Be – ." He was interrupted by a spate of coughing and Theodore looked around frantically. Percy stood and began sorting through a series of vials neatly labeled in Padma's careful hand until he found the one he sought and handed it to Theodore. Theodore uncorked it and held it to his father's mouth and the man swallowed it without protest.

"Good wizarding techniques," he said. "They do not fail us."

"Dad," Theodore said. He had to try. If Lucius Malfoy could accept a new world, surely his father could as well. He had to try, he told himself. "If Padma suggests – "

"I will not sully myself with Muggle things," Thoros said. His voice was firm and Theodore began to cry. "I will die as I have lived: as a pureblood wizard of the House of Nott."

Theodore opened his mouth to argue again, but Percy lay a hand on his shoulder and he swallowed hard and just took his father's hand again. "I love you," he said. "I love you so much, Dad."

"You're a good son," Thoros said. "I hope some day you can forgive me." He shuddered a bit as if anticipating a coughing fit that didn't come and then lay quietly as Theodore held his hand and sat a vigil in silence. After a while, Padma came in and Percy followed her back into the main part of her lab. They consulted in low voices until Percy came back and again sat next to Theodore. The mediwitch brought them both some light food and a cup of broth for Thoros. Theodore ignored the food set out for him and his father didn't stir when he was asked if he'd like anything to eat. His chest rose and fell, and there would be a moment when it didn't and Theodore would tense, his eyes on the old man until he sputtered into breathing again, a candle at the end of its wick struggling to get the last few drops of fuel.

Percy had pulled the armchair next to Theodore and had begun to doze when, at last, Thoros' chest fought to rise one last time and lost the battle. Theodore let out an anguished moan and folded his body over his father. "Dad," he whispered against man's still frame. "Daddy."


	249. Chapter 249 (Susan Ponders)

Susan was shaking by the time she got back to Nott Manor. She'd never been called such ugly names in her life. She'd tried explaining the impetus behind her actions to move a dying man from prison to a hospital to no avail. 'Death Eater lover' had been the tamest of the invective hurled at her.

Blaise stood when she came into the library and, without even asking if she were okay, pushed her down into a chair, tucked a blanket around her, and, after a whispered conversation with an elf who was keeping her opinions to herself for once, handed her a cup of hot tea. "Peppermint," he said. "Calms upset stomachs."

She took a sip and gave him a wan smile.

"My guess is they've already eliminated wergild," Blaise said.

"They called an emergency meeting of the full Wizengamot," Susan said.

"But you got him out," he said.

Susan shrugged and stared at the mug held in both her hands. "To die," she said. "Padma said she was amazed he'd held on this long." She took a sip. "He was alive when I left, but who knows for how long."

Blaise tugged off one of her shoes, gave it a look of disgust, tossed it aside, and took off the second. "Can't she use one of her Muggle tricks?" he asked. "Like the things she's done for Draco's father?"

Susan didn't answer for a long time. She just stared down at the cup of pale brown liquid. Had she done the right thing? "We're more than the worst things we've done," she said at last, more to herself than to Blaise. "Even monsters are human."

"Padma?" he prompted her again.

"He refused Muggle treatment," she said. She watched Blaise close his eyes in pain at that revelation.

"Theodore," he said. What would Theodore do now was the obvious question.

She didn't say anything. What was there to say? She'd worked to get the man out. She'd told herself she'd done it for the right reasons, that it was wrong to make an elderly man suffer and die in prison, wrong to deny him medical care and when it was over he'd denied himself that care. In the end, had she only cared about Theodore?

"How do you know if you've done the right thing?" she asked, still more to herself than to the man at her side with his cheekbones and his cool air of never being flustered or wrong or unsure. "Maybe he should have stayed in there and suffered."

"I'm too simple to answer that," Blaise said.

She snorted, pulled out of her cycling thoughts by that. The idea of sophisticated Blaise Zabini as a simple man was absurd. He rolled his eyes at the sound she made and settled down on a low stool at her feet and watched her steadily as he said, "You have the kindest heart, Susan. Don't let the people who have a smaller capacity for forgiveness than you do wear you down."

"They called me a murderer," she said. "They told me I was as bad as he was. They said he deserved to die a thousand times over, in agony every time."

Blaise shook his head. "I don't pretend to know the answers," he said. "I know about shoes and good fabrics and how to keep my mother from making that disappointed frown and that's about it. But you aren't a murderer. You're just… you somehow didn't let the real murderers take your capacity for kindness away from you."

Susan could see herself reflected in her tea. Her translucent image wavered on the surface of the water. "I don't know if I feel very kind right now," she said. "I feel like I hurt all these people who suffered in the war, who lost loved ones _at his hands_ and I helped him, what, have dignity at the end?" She moved the cup and the reflection vanished as the water moved, the second-Susan gone. "It was more than he ever offered his victims. He was a horrible man."

"He was," Blaise agreed.

"He hated so much he preferred to die rather than to admit he might have been wrong."

"I know."

"I hate this." She could feel her eyes stinging and her chest caving in as she folded around herself, huddled in the chair under the blanket Blaise had wrapped around her.

Blaise reached out and set one finger on the hands she had curled around the slowly cooling tea. "Go to bed," he said. "Take a Draught so you can sleep. In the morning maybe you'll feel a little better."

"Solve the problem in front of you," Susan murmured.

"Well," Blaise said, "I'm not really a big picture kind of guy, not like you. All I can do is take care of what's in front of me." He held out his hand. "Walk you up to your room?"


	250. Chapter 250 (Breakfast at Malfoy Manor)

"Where are you going?" Narcissa set her morning tea down and gave Lucius a seemingly benign look. He wasn't fooled. "This might not be the best day to go in to see Miss Patil." She slid the _Daily Prophet_ across the breakfast table and Lucius, recognizing the implicit command, sank back down into his chair, rested his cane against the edge of the table, and pulled the paper all the way to his place.

"They got him out," he said, half to himself.

"I have been considering starting a scholarship fund," Narcissa said, as if she were changing the subject. "While there are some funds to help support indigent students invited to Hogwarts, the costs of supplies for some of the more advanced classes can be prohibitive."

"Oh?" Lucius continued to skim the article.

 _Using an outdated system known as Wegild (see page 14 for an article by renowned scholar Odly Aldwin that lays out the particulars of what Wergild is and how it was used in this case), young members of a growing political faction manipulated the Wizengamot to ensure the release of one of their fathers from his justly deserved imprisonment._

"Does Draco know he's part of a political faction?" The words were polite but Lucius could feel worry churn in his gut.

"I think, more to the point, has Hermione Granger read this yet," Narcissa said. "As I was saying, I was thinking of setting up a foundation to ensure sufficient funding for gifted but impoverished students at Hogwarts. Do you think Miss Granger would be interested in joining the board."

"Narcissa," Lucius began.

She set her tea down and smiled at him. "Did you know this is the same writer who tried to claim our son had Imperiused Miss Granger over a year ago?" At the slight shake of Lucius' head, Narcissa said, "She ended up issuing a prompt apology for that. Interesting, wouldn't you say?"

"I think Miss Granger has a deep devotion to education," Lucius said, "to answer your earlier question. I question the possible conflict of interest of having a Hogwarts professor on the board of such a foundation, however."

Narcissa's mouth curved into a tiny frown before she smoothed it out. "I don't think she'll stay," she said. "Draco will, but I think she'll leave the school and focus more on her own interests."

Lucius decided not to question how his wife had come to this conclusion. She and Draco's fiancée were not close, so he was quite sure it wasn't due to a conversation she had had with the woman herself. Still, Narcissa had a long track record of being somewhat annoyingly right. He suspected that tradition would play out again soon and the author of this filthy article implying the children living at Nott Manor were the next round of Death Eaters would be shortly apologizing again and then moving on to the next challenge in her career.

"Perhaps you're right that I shouldn't go into the clinic today," he said. "I suspect it's a bit of a madhouse at St. Mungo's." He turned his eyes back to the article.

 _This writer is saddened to see the young heroes of the past war so easily turned to using their fame to support the worst criminals of our times. These are not good people. These are people who have done bad things. They are the lowest and they have been justly punished. It's unfortunate that these young war veterans have not taken on more responsible leadership roles._

The churning in Lucius's gut became worse.

"Narcissa," he began again.

"I planned to send an owl over to Miss Granger," she said as if he hadn't poken. "Theodore surely has no idea how to plan a proper funeral and I am sure he is, or shortly will be, distraught. Thoros was always an excellent father."

Lucius nodded and waited for her.

"I'll be sure to ask her if she would like an assistance in dealing with this reporter person but I'm quite sure they will have it quite under control." She raised her brows and looked at him. "Would you set yourself against Harry Potter, most of the Weasley clan, our son, Theodore Nott, the young Bones girl, your intrepid Healer, and Miss Granger?"

Lucius began to smile. "Not if I had designs on winning," he said.


	251. Chapter 251 (Hermione Gets the Paper)

Hermione's screech of fury when she read the article in the _Daily Prophet_ made even the elves back out of the breakfast room with slow, careful steps. Draco yanked the paper away from her and began to swear. Blaise took it from him and shrugged. "I don't see why you're surprised," he said.

"There's a vacancy in the Wizengamot," Percy said. He reached across the table and snagged the pot of marmalade and smiled at Hermione. "Several, actually. No one's quite been able to fill all the positions after the war." He'd come back to the Manor with Theodore the night before, drugged the man into sleep, and spent most of the night sitting in a chair and staring at reports and documents from work, his eyes not seeing the words in front of him. He and Blaise had come down to breakfast first, he because he'd never slept and Blaise because he was the least connected to the crisis and thus had slept as soundly as he ever did.

"Susan's upset," Blaise had said. Percy had nodded. The protestors outside the hospital had shouted things at her that would have upset anyone. They'd put their heads together before anyone else woke, the Slytherin who didn't want to get involved and the Gryffindor who knew how the system worked all too well, and they'd come up with a plan.

It was a good plan. Percy liked it. It wasn't dramatic or showy the way anything his brothers would have concocted would have been. It wasn't quite as manipulative and borderline illegal as Blaise had wanted to go.

You could take the man out of the snake pit Percy had mused as Blaise suggested blackmailing every last protester who'd yelled at Susan into submission, but he never quite shed his skin.

On the other hand, Hermione was ordering Draco to go get a mason jar because she had a few things she'd like to say to Rita Skeeter, so blackmail as a technique clearly wasn't limited to Slytherin.

"Hermione," Percy said. She didn't listen to him, so caught up in her fury that _that woman_ had had the temerity to set herself against her yet again and she was going to make her understand she could not do that, oh yes she was. "Hermione," he repeated more loudly and she stopped hissing to Draco and turned to him.

"What?" she snapped.

"I think we should put Susan onto the Wizengamot," he said.

"And I think we should put a man on Mars, but I thought I'd stick with managable goals today," she said, shifting so she could continue her tirade at Draco.

"Hermione," Blaise said.

She turned to glare at him with an expression that would have sent a wise man scurrying in search of a place to hide. Blaise had never been one for wisdom so he just met her eyes and said, "We think we can do it."

She sagged in her chair at that and looked from Percy to Blaise. "How?" she asked.

"She's from a political family," Percy began. "She's got the support of the whole of Dumbledore's Army, or at least I assume she would - "

"She would," Hermione said. "Go on."

"And she just took an incredibly unpopular public stance."

"I'm not seeing that as an asset," Hermione said but she kept listening and Blaise took a deep breath.

"After a war-time government that lied to people, adding a woman with impeccable credentials for the light to their ranks will give the Wizengamot a chance to whitewash their own reputation, especially one who's willing to stand up for the least among us."

"A convicted Death Eater," Hermione said doubtfully.

Percy leaned forward as thought that would help him convince her. "I know it's hard to picture Theodore's father as anything but a bigoted aristocrat arse - "

"Especially if you had the misfortune of meeting him," Hermione said under her breath. Percy ignored her.

" - but we can paint him in the press as a sad, old man who couldn't let go of the past, who was suffering in prison, who died less than 24-hours after being released despite the best medical care St. Mungo's could offer. This is a woman who champions the weakest, most vulnerable members of society." He took a deep breath. "It would take a little propaganda," he admitted. "We'd need a reporter in our pocket, but I think we could do it."

Hermione looked at Draco who began to smirk at her as he hefted the mason jar an elf had brought him in one hand. "I can get, let's call it 'information about peccadillos they'd rather not have made public' on quite a few members of the current Wizengamot," he said. "As long as we make it not political suicide to vote her in, I'm pretty sure we could get the majority vote we'd need."

Hermione looked back at Percy. "You could explain to a reporter what she needs to be saying?" she asked.

"In small words," he reassured her.

"Then let's take everything over," Hermione said. "Saddened, is she? I'll make her saddened." She slammed a cup down, tea splashed over the rim, and she made an aggravated sound and began blotting at the liquid on the table with her napkin. "Misled," she muttered as she blotted. "Bitch wants us to take on 'responsible leadership roles.' I'll show her responsible leadership roles. We'll responsibly leadership role her into wishing she'd never opened her big mouth."

"So, we go visit Rita Skeeter after breakfast?" Draco asked.

The look the fuming Hermione gave him was answer enough.


	252. Chapter 252 (A Visit to Rita Skeeter)

Rita Skeeter was not happy to see them.

Blaise had never seen a woman less happy to see visitors. She started to demand how they'd gotten in and Draco just gave her a look. "I considered buying the paper," he said. "That seemed a bit obvious, however."

"Plus, your fiancée told you she doesn't want it," Blaise said.

"There is that," Draco agreed. "She has a lot to juggle right now."

"I am standing _right here_ ," Hermione said, slamming the mason jar she'd brought with her down onto the reporter's desk. Blaise had once had a girlfriend, using the term loosely, who'd had a plaque above her cluttered vanity table that read 'A Clean Desk is the Sign of a Sick Mind.' Using that standard, Rita Skeeter's mind was very healthy indeed. He wondered how she could find anything in all the piles of parchment, many with notes scrawled across them and several with obvious coffee rings. The woman was impeccably groomed with a slash of red across her mouth he knew took a meticulous hand to apply that perfectly. She didn't seem to extend her love of order past herself, however.

"Yes, love," Draco said. "I was merely explaining to the nice reporter why I didn't just buy the paper and fire her for her little slur campaign."

Hermione smiled at Draco and Blaise considered what a terror she would have been in Slytherin. Pity the blood status thing had kept her out, because he'd seen looks that calculatedly sweet on the faces of all the girls he'd grown up with. They'd been evil, manipulative girls who said one thing and meant another, and, if she hadn't slandered Susan, he might have pitied the coiffed reporter.

Instead he pitied Draco. Talk about finding a girl just like dear, old mum. He supposed they were happy - they certainly seemed sickeningly so - but he'd had his fill of cold-blooded snakes. Even Theodore had had the sense to find himself a partner from a different House.

Though, Blaise mused as he glanced over at Theo's Gryffindor, Percy seemed awfully Slytherin as well.

"Ms. Skeeter," Hermione was saying as he pulled his attention back to her. "I would have thought after your little misstep last year, you'd have been more careful about antagonizing me. I thought you understood subtlety. I see I was wrong."

"The public deserves to know what your little cabal is up to," Rita said. She sounded smug and self-righteous but Blaise noticed her eyes kept going to the mason jar as if she couldn't stop herself.

"The public does like to see dirty laundry," Hermione said. "Airing the bugs out and all that, don't you agree, Draco."

"No one ever went broke appealing to the lowest common denominator," he said.

"But I was thinking," Hermione went on, "how a talented writer such as yourself could work to elevate the discourse." She smiled and Blaise wondered if she had any idea how much she looked like Narcissa when she had that look on her face. The coloring was different, of course. Almost no one was as pale as the Malfoy clan. The expression, however, was all Narcissa. Hermione was a cat with a mouse trapped, her paw on its tail, and she was enjoying every moment.

"What a great story Susan Bones is," Hermione went on. "Woman loses all her family in the war and returns to fight Lord Voldemort in the final battle anyway." She glanced at Draco. "Was Ms. Skeeter at that battle?"

"I don't believe so," he said.

"And her with the ability to sneak onto the grounds at Hogwarts at will," Hermione said. "Tsk. As I was saying, however, she loses her entire family, returns to fight, then dedicates her time to working towards a world where even the very people who hurt her - destroyed her life, really - are treated with dignity and kindness."

"She's a better person than I am," Draco said. "I tend to lean more towards destroying my enemies than forgiving them."

"Me too," Hermione said. She tipped her head and regarded Rita Skeeter. "Remind me sometime to tell you about Professor Umbridge and the centaurs."

"Susan's one of a kind," Blaise said, trying not to shiver at the reminder of just how cold-blooded Hermione Granger could be.

"She really is," Hermione agreed. "I think a woman with that kind of decency - "

"And politics is a bit of a family business," Draco said.

" - belongs on the Wizengamot, don't you, Rita?"

Rita Skeeter looked from Draco to Percy to Hermione to Blaise and back again. "I don't understand how you children think I can help you with whatever pathetic political goals you've dreamt up, but - "

"You're going to make Susan a public darling," Percy said. It was the first time he'd spoken. "You're going to laud her as a woman utterly unblemished by backroom deals, a pure soul emerging from the dark pit of politics, unafraid to do what's right even in the face of public opposition."

"We'll take care of the Wizengamot," Draco said. He smirked at her. "If anyone proves to be uncooperative - "

"And likely at least one person will," Hermione said, her words like honey.

" - I'll pass along a scoop to you."

"With proof," Rita said, following his line of thought easily. "Old letters, photographs. Things like that."

Draco smiled at her. "I'd never ask a woman with integrity such as yours to write an article exposing a wee character flaw in one of our country's leaders without hard evidence to back it up."

Rita's smile became predatory. "It's always good to see a young woman from an illustrious family such as Susan Bones take an interest in the well-being of the less fortunate. Human interest stories like that always sell well."

"Run them by Percy for approval," Hermione said.

Rita's smile didn't even falter. "I like to have a second set of eyes look over my articles," she said. "Saves the proofreaders' time."

"Glad to see we understand one another," Draco said as he offered his arm to Hermione and they turned to go.

"You can keep the jar," Hermione said before she left. "I have lots."


	253. Chapter 253 (Breakfast at Nott Manor)

When they returned home they found Theodore in the breakfast room. His always pale face had turned grey overnight, and his hair hung with lank despair over his eyes. He glanced up at them through the fringe and then returned to poking at his toast with a desultory air.

"How are you?" Hermione asked, sliding in the seat next to him at the table and resting a hand on his arm.

"I'm fine," he said, the words an obvious lie. He shook her hand off and took a large swallow from the glass of pumpkin juice at his place. "It was bound to happen, of course. No use getting all maudlin about it. At least he died in comfort, surrounded by love. Can't thank you all enough for that. Means the world to me."

"He did," Hermione agreed. "And we were happy to do it. I just wish - "

"Certainly was more than he ever granted his victims." Theodore pushed his chair back from the table. "If you'll excuse me," he said. "Could probably use a shower. Mail arrived while you lot were out. There was a note for you, Hermione." He nodded at the clustered group and strode off, his footsteps never faltering as he walked down the corridor and up the stairs.

"I sometimes do not understand the English," Blaise said into the silence that hung after Theodore's departure. "Would it kill you people to admit you're fucking emotional about things?"

Draco picked up the notes that had arrived via owl post and began sorting them out. He handed several Howlers to Blaise who grimaced but nodded. He'd take them outside so they could screech their invective to the air where neither Theodore nor Susan would hear them. Other notes, written in scrawled penmanship that would have earned Draco a slap from any of his governesses, were on normal parchment but Draco had little doubt as to their contents. He made a precise stack of those to burn. Theodore had opened a few before he'd tossed the whole pile aside and a quick glance at one confirmed Draco's suspicion: badly spelled hatred written by people who had only a passing acquaintance with grammar but a near-fetish adoration of capital letters and underlining. In the whole of the day's post he found one note for himself from Potter and one for Hermione from his mother.

He passed that over with a sense of foreboding and opened his own note. It was brief.

 _I'm sure you're getting shite. Let me know if there's anything Ginny or I can do to help. Talked to Ron. He's in as well. We've got your back. ~ H_

Percy raised a questioning brow and Draco said, "Potter just wanted to let us know we could count on him. Your brother too, apparently."

"Ron's a good sort at heart," Percy said. He glanced at Hermione as if expecting her to argue but she just nodded absently as she pried open her own letter. She read it once, then twice, then set it down and reached for the juice.

"What is it?" Draco asked. "She wasn't unpleasant, was she?"

"No." Hermione drew the word out, set the glass down without taking a sip, and picked the note up again. "She just offered her help in planning a funeral as we are probably all going to be a little overwhelmed." She handed the note to Draco who skimmed it. Hermione had summarized the body of text but left off his mother's little postscript.

 _I'm confident you've already handled that unfortunate and misguided reporter, but if I can aid you in any way in that regard, please do not hesitate to ask. Consider the whole of Malfoy resources at your disposal._

Blaise leaned over his shoulder and read the note. "Birds of a feather," he muttered.

"Shite," Hermione said, apparently out of nowhere. They all looked at her in confused shock. She had the glass of pumpkin juice in her hand and was staring at it. Before anyone could ask what was the matter she passed it over to Percy who took a sip.

"Shite," he said. "And not a light hand, either."

Draco held his own hand out and Percy passed the glass over. When Draco tasted it he flinched. Theodore had added so much alcohol to the juice he was shocked the man had been able to stand.

"What do we do?" Hermione asked but Percy was already running from the room and up the stairs.


	254. Chapter 254 (Percy and Theodore Talk)

Percy found Theodore in his room - in what had become their room without either of them ever quite discussing it - and he closed the door behind him and took a step toward the man who stood, his back to him, staring out the window. Frost still outlined all the leaves, the morning's rime not yet melted by the kiss of the sun. "I'm sorry for your loss," Percy said, taking refuge in words that could never be right but weren't exactly wrong either. "I know he loved you very much."

"Yes, well, the world is probably better off," Theodore said without turning.

"You're not," Percy said, and at that his lover did turn, and Percy wasn't surprised to see Theodore's mouth distorted and wrenched by grief.

"He's dead," Theodore said, the words as twisted as his mouth. "How can I be this unhappy when he was such a horrible person? How can I…?" He struggled to control himself and then said, "I think a private service would be best. I know he would have preferred that and, if we were to invite anyone, we'd risk a bit of a show."

"Draco's mother has already offered to help," Percy said. "We'll take care of it."

"He's dead," Theodore repeated again. "I'm… my mum's dead. My dad. I… what do I do now?"

"You go on," Percy said as gently as he could. He felt out of place, perhaps presumptuous, offering advice on how to cope with the loss of a parent. He and Draco were the only two in the house who _hadn't_ lost parents. He took a step closer and rested his hands on Theodore's arms as the man stood there, jaw clenched to keep from breaking down. This close he could smell the reek of the alcohol. It smelled like despair and hopelessness and giving up.

"How can someone like you possibly want me?" Theodore tried to turn away again but Percy held on to him and didn't let him. Percy even laughed a little, a rough, sad sound, and that got Theodore's attention.

"Someone like me?" Percy said. "The ambitious one who never fit in anywhere? Not quite right, never quite right, not even within my own family? Too poor for the people who matter at the Ministry? Too eager? For someone like me, someone like you is… you are someone I could never resist."

"Why?" The one word hovered there as the sun finally pulled itself above the tree line. The light glittered as it hit the frost in the world outside their room and everything sparkled so brightly Percy had to squint against the glare.

"You make family," Percy said. "You make people belong. You… look at this place. You've got Draco and Hermione living in one suite and they're never leaving. You know that, don't you? They'll still be here when the inevitable Malfoy heir is screaming his fool head off."

Theodore's lips turned up in an unwilling hint of a smile. "Well," he said. "Hermione's my sister. We did some thing with a bracelet Padma gave us and now it's official. Even the elves think so."

"And Susan," Percy continued.

"Well, Susan's got nowhere else to go," Theodore said.

"And Blaise?"

"I can't really explain that one," Theodore said, but by now the smile had reached his eyes and some of the tension had eased out of him.

"And Andy, who you might as well set up a bedroom for, because he's always here."

"Kid needs a home," Theodore said with a shrug.

Percy took a hand and cupped it along the side of Theodore's face. "We all do," he said. "You took this huge house and turned it into a home for all the lost people and you've let us slide into your space and take over."

"It's what these big old houses are for," Theodore said. "They aren't supposed to be for two lonely people, they're this big so there's room for the extended family and - "

"And you've made us all into that extended family," Percy said. He ran a thumb along the line of Theodore's cheekbones. "You ask why I'd want you? How could I not when you've given me the first place I've ever been wholly accepted by everyone?" He swallowed, his throat bobbing, before he added, "And I love you."

He stepped back and looked at Theodore. Enough with the emotional displays; it was time to move on to practical considerations. "Can you go the rest of the day without drinking?"

He knew by the way Theodore didn't respond at once that the answer was probably no. "Not if I'm by myself," Theodore said. "You probably hate me - "

Percy made a show of rolling his eyes. "I think we've _just_ established I don't. Go take a shower and I'll keep you from being alone."

Theodore stopped when his hand was on the door to the bath. "Thanks," he said.

Percy shrugged. "Think nothing of it."


	255. Chapter 255 (At the Duckpond)

After a few whispered words to one of the house elves, Draco took a brown paper sack, two heavy cloaks, and Hermione's hand and led her out over the back terrace and down one of the paths that wound through the property. Towards the back of the gardens there was an old duck pond, long neglected and recently brought back to its original splendor thanks to the work of Kreacher. Bundled up, the couple settled on one of the carved stone benches that looked out at the pond. A few hardy ducks, convinced to stay over the winter by Kreacher's food offerings, waddled over and Draco handed Hermione the sack. She reached in and pulled out some stale bread, long past its prime, and tossed a piece to the nearest duck. The duck snatched it off the cold ground and squawked for more.

"Yesterday's toast," she said as she threw down another chunk.

"More like last week's," Draco said. "Maybe last year's." He started to draw little circles on her shoulder as they sat there. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Draco watched two avaricious ducks fight over one of the pieces of bread. They lunged toward it at the same time and the one who grabbed it ran a few feet further so she could eat her prize in peace. "I don't know," he said as Hermione tossed down another piece of bread to another scurry of the ducks. "Maybe because you were already overwhelmed between work and the research you want to do and my mother and everything, and now you've got a funeral, and a drinking Theodore, and the wee matter of a political coup you're helping to organize."

"Hardly a coup," she protested. "Just… just one person. Just one representative of _us_ , of the people who actually fought in that war, just one on the whole of the Wizengamot." She tossed down another bit of bread. "Not a coup."

"There are other open seats," Draco said. "We might manage more than one."

"Not me," Hermione said as quickly as she could.

"Not me either," Draco said. "Malfoys like to pull strings." He grinned at the rather irritated look she gave him at that. "We do," he said. "Better to be a kingmaker than a king and all that." He reached into the bag and took a bit of bread and held it down to the ducks waiting for one brave enough to waddle up to him and snatch it from his hand. He rewarded the little brown duck who took it with another piece and then another. "One of the Weasleys, maybe," he said.

"Percy?" she asked.

"Maybe too obvious," Draco said. "I was thinking of the twin."

"George?" Hermione asked. She shook her head. "He'd be… he'd be terrible," she said. "He'd put diuretics in the water at the Ministry just because he could." She looked down at her hands. "I should go see him, though." A deep breath as she looked out over the pond. "One more thing I haven't done."

Draco shrugged and tried to control his irritation that she'd just added one more thing to her list of things she thought she ought to do. "I'll have the elves throw together some kind of party for Christmas and we'll invite him and you can get all your shoulds out in one night."

"We have to plan the funeral," she said. "Theodore can't - "

"The elves can," he said. "They probably will whether you want them to or not." He put his hand around her shoulders and pulled her against him. "I wish you'd let me take care of you, at least a little. You're running yourself ragged."

She glanced down at his arm. "Are you okay?" she asked, an obvious change of subject but one he decided to let pass.

"I'm not the one the old bigot called filth," Draco said. "I wouldn't have minded slamming my fist into his nose for that, but I'm not… it doesn't make me feel like I need to - ."

"Good," she said. She leaned her head on him. "He just makes me feel sad," she said. "He doesn't make me feel…I didn't come home and sneak a Draught in the loo or anything."

"I'm glad," Draco said.

Hermione pinched her lips together and then said with immense caution, "It was very nice of your mother to offer to help with the funeral arrangements. She probably knows what sorts of things Theodore's father would have considered appropriate."

"It was," Draco said. "She would, I'm sure." He wasn't completely sure what his mother's gesture meant. Was it an acknowledgement of Hermione as his fiancée? As Theodore's de facto sister and thus the mistress of Nott Manor, responsible for such things? Both? Neither?

"Shall I owl her back when we go back up to the house and tell her that I would be grateful for her assistance?"

"Only if you want to," Draco said.

Hermione dumped out the rest of the old bread and watched the ducks gobble it down. "I think I do," she said.

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, you lovely people. Another day, another snippet…_**


	256. Chapter 256 (Molly Gets the Paper)

Molly Weasley pursed her lips as she squinted at the days's paper. "Did you know Susan Bones," she asked Ron.

He looked up from where he'd been playing a casual game of chess with Tracey. George, perched on a stool and doing something probably illegal as he worked to alter a charm for his newest product, looked up as well. It was a thinly attended Sunday dinner at the Burrow. Percy had sent an owl saying Theodore needed him and Molly had made all the right noises that of course he should stay with his friend right now. The release of Thoros Nott from Azkaban the week before and his subsequent death had been all the news. Everyone had an opinion. Percy had not come home to hear his family voice theirs.

"I knew her," he said. "Not well enough to call her a friend, I suppose, but she was in Dumbledore's Army."

"We support our own," George said. The words were quiet but unmistakable. Tracey stirred rather uncomfortably where she sat and George tossed a bit of an apologetic smile her way but didn't say anything more.

"She sounds remarkable," Molly said.

"She was," Tracey said. Ron looked at her with some surprise. She didn't talk about Hogwarts if she could avoid it. He'd managed to glean that her final year had been a study in horror, trapped in a school that had become little more than a prison watched over by sadists. Tracey moved a piece and he studied the board. She was a slippery player, prone to moves he didn't understand until it was too late to defend against them. "She used to ask if I was doing okay," Tracey added. "We were in Herbology together. She couldn't do anything, of course, but at least she asked."

"Rita Skeeter has a lovely piece on her," Molly said. "I thought she was… I mean, getting that awful man out of Azkaban seemed… but she sounds like someone who really spends all her time thinking about other people."

Ron and George exchanged glances.

"Not that I support being soft on Death Eaters, of course," Molly went on. "Just look at how the Carrows treated Tracey."

Tracey recognized her cue and made a mmm-ing sound of agreement.

"I'm sure you wouldn't want them out of prison," Molly said.

"I would have trouble sleeping," Tracey admitted. "More trouble."

"Still," Molly looked back at the paper. "I always thought that Madam Bones was a good woman. She used to say very nice things to Arthur when she saw him in the halls. And Susan is her niece. You can tell a lot about a person by their family."

Ron and George exchanged another look but still didn't say anything. Percy had cornered Ron and told him they were planning on putting Susan up for one of the open seats in the Wizengamot. They needed fifty percent of the current members to vote her in and then she was on for life. "We need one of ours in power," he said.

"One of Dumbledore's Army?" Ron had asked.

"That," Percy had said though his mouth had turned a little and Ron had been reminded that Percy effectively lived with people who'd suffered through the other side. "Though I was thinking a war veteran. A _real_ veteran, someone who fought."

Ron had nodded at that. He'd run into more than his share of people who seemed to have magically conjured war time efforts into their past out of thin air. Now everyone had been an Order supporter. He didn't recall quite so many people being unambiguously against Voldemort back when he'd been sneaking into the Ministry to get that awful locket from Umbridge. He remembered people who kept their heads down and slogged along, not taking any personal risks even if they thought things were wrong.

He sure as hell didn't _like_ Malfoy, but at least the man had an inkling of what it had been like. He'd be able to take care of Hermione the way he and Tracey could take care of one another. Their experiences might have all been different, but none of them had been able to hide behind bureaucratic excuse of doing nothing to stay safe because 'it was my job'.

"One of ours," he'd said to Percy. "Agreed."

He'd told George, and he was pretty sure Hermione had told Neville and Hannah up in Hogsmeade, and, one by one, all the student survivors were spreading the word to each other. Susan Bones for Wizengamot. One of ours.

"Susan was always a good sort," Ron said now as his mother reread the article by Rita Skeeter. "I'd trust her."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello, loveliest readers in fandom. One of the things about this story that amazes me is how it just doesn't garner many hateful reviews. I could probably count on one hand the number of things people have posted that have seemingly been meant to be unkind. I thank you all for that._**

 ** _The best way to get questions to me remains tumblr, where I have the same user name as here._**


	257. Chapter 257 (Thoros' Funeral)

The service was quiet. They invited no one and, other than Lucius and Narcissa, no one even knew the day Thoros was laid to rest in the Nott family plot next to his wife. His headstone read only, 'Thoros Nott. Loving husband and father.'

After his body was interred and they each threw a handful of soil over the casket, Theodore scrougified each of their hands and they returned to the main house where the elves, under the direction of Narcissa Malfoy, had set out a small luncheon. As each of their small group of friends filled a plate and sat, perched on edges of brocade seats and silken chaises, Hermione murmured thanks to Narcissa for her help.

"It was my pleasure," the woman replied as she spread a napkin over her lap and balanced her plate on her knees. "Thoros was a good man, once."

Hermione opted not to respond to that. The man had loved his son and she chose to think only about that, at least on this day and at this time.

Narcissa wasn't fooled. "He clung to things he should have let go," she said. "It can be difficult to let go of the things we are taught as children."

"The Jesuits say if you give them a child until five, they'll give you a Catholic for life," Hermione said. Her own plate wobbled on her knees and after she steadied it she looked up at Narcissa's perplexed expression. "A Muggle religious group," she said.

"Childhood indoctrination," Narcissa said. "Yes. Exactly."

They sat in uncomfortable silence as each ate the cold meats and sliced apples from the Nott orchards that had been set out. There was a cake as well, sliced and ready to be eaten, and pitchers of water and juice. Percy stayed at Theodore's side and fixed the man's plate and filled his cup, a level of hovering care none of them commented on. "Thank you for the book," Narcissa said at last. "Draco tells me you're doing a bit of a study of wandless magic."

"Trying to," Hermione said. "Work seems to take all my time. Teaching is… it's more work than I expected it to be. I don't seem to have time for anything else."

"Draco seems to enjoy teaching," Narcissa said.

"He does," Hermione said. That Draco also enjoyed pulling the strings of power was something neither mentioned. Since Blaise and Percy had concocted their plan to slip Susan into a Wizengamot seat, a plan she'd agreed to, he'd come home from Hogwarts only to floo immediately to Malfoy Manor, where he spent the evenings head down with his father reviewing decades of blackmail material the Malfoys had collected. Politicians often had nasty habits. Some liked drugs. Others liked prostitutes. More than one had been less than subtle in their support of Voldemort in their private communications. "He's good with the kids," she said.

"He'll be a good father," Narcissa said.

Hermione's plate slid off her lap at that and crashed to the floor. She stared at it in embarrassed dismay and half rose to find a rag before she remembered she was a witch, and a witch studying wandless cleaning charms at that, and muttered a quick spell. The mess disappeared and Hermione picked up her glass of water, apple slices floating it in, and forced a brittle smile to her face. "Yes," she said. "I suppose he will."

Narcissa took a deep breath and seemed to brace herself and then said, "Have you two set a date yet?"

Hermione dropped her glass. "I'm so sorry," she heard herself apologizing to Narcissa. "I'm so clumsy today. I don't know what's come over me. The stress of the funeral, I suppose."

Narcissa whisked away the broken glass shards and water with a word and signaled to Draco to get Hermione another glass. A lifetime let him understand the meaning of his mother's waved hands, and Draco left Hannah where she stood with Neville and Padma and dutifully went to fetch as he'd been told.

"Death, even death we know is coming, can be difficult," Narcissa said to Hermione. "It shines a light onto things such as our own mortality and our futures that we have, perhaps, not wanted to examine too closely."

"After the school year is over," Hermione said. Her heart rate started to accelerate and she could feel herself start to shake but she tried to force herself to hide it. "We think in early summer."

Draco stood there, glass in hand, as his mother said, "Would you like help with the reception? I know it's not usually done for the groom's mother to participate, but I hoped that, perhaps, you would permit me?"

"I… that would be nice," Hermione said. "Thank you."

Draco swore as he fumbled the water glass in his hands and had to go get another one as his fiancée cleaned up the spill.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Hello. Good morning. Greetings. Salutations. Thank you, as always._**


	258. Chapter 258 (Doughnuts?)

It was the way Andy was whispering to the elves that alerted her. He'd come home with them, the way he almost always did for at least one weekend night, but he wasn't the subtlest child ever, and he just looked guilty as he consulted with one of the elves that continued to scowl at her clothes but doted on the boy. All the elves doted on Andy. Watching them, Hermione had understood even more clearly how little pureblood princlings ended up spoiled rotten.

"Anything I can help you with?" Hermione asked Andy.

He jumped. He actually jumped and she sighed. It was a good thing this one was growing up in a time of peace. He couldn't even manage to hide what he was doing in a house full of indulgent quasi-adults primed to give him anything he wanted.

The elf looked at her and huffed off using one of those stomps Hermione had learned to interpret as not actually upset. Whatever she was interrupting, the elf hadn't been on board. Andy made a face and scuffed his toe along the wood floor tracing the inlaid star pattern, and finally said, "I wanted to bring some doughnuts in to surprise Sari."

Hermione blinked at him a few times. "Why not just get doughnuts at school?" she asked at last.

The explanation fell out quickly after that. The elves at school were nice enough but they were less amendable to making special treats for individual students than the Nott elves, and tomorrow was the first day of Chanukah, and he knew that they'd all been busy because of _things_ and he hadn't wanted to bother them, and he knew it wasn't really a big gift thing - not like Christmas - but he wanted to get Sari something, and since he couldn't really go shopping, and it wasn't like he had any wizard money _anyway_ , he'd thought he'd get her doughnuts because he'd remembered from last year that they were a Chanukah food and who didn't like food?

Theodore had walked up behind Andy during the last part of this run-on explanation. "Why don't you have any money?" he asked, cutting to what was, for him, the heart of the boy's problem.

"Just don't," Andy said.

"But what do you do on Hogsmeade trips?" Theodore asked him.

Andy shrugged.

"You do have a signed permission slip, right?" Hermione asked him.

Andy looked guilty and she and Theodore met one another's eyes. "Probably forged," Theodore mouthed over the boy's head and she sighed.

"You know," Theodore said, "I was going to head into Diagon Alley just now. Why don't you tag along and we'll stop at Weasley's Wizards Wheezes and you can pick something out for Sari?"

"Don't want to be a bother," Andy muttered.

Theodore ruffled the boy's hair and Andy ducked away with adolescent aggravation. "Isn't a bother," Theodore said. "I was going anyway."

"What do you need?" Hermione asked him, trying to control the smile that wanted to take over her face. Theodore looked momentarily trapped as he tried to think of something until she added, "Because if you were headed into Flourish & Botts you could pick up the book on wedding customs and binding vows they ordered for me."

"Yeah," he said. "I wanted to get a book. I can get that for you while I'm there."

Andy had shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. "Can't get her a present that way," he said. "No money. My father said I didn't need spending money at school."

Theodore controlled the spasm of rage that contorted his mouth and just said, "I can spot you a few galleons, kid. While we're there, if you've got other holiday shopping you want to do, let me know. Maybe a Christmas present for that girl with the makeup you've mentioned a few times? Or we could go back once the holiday has started and you've had time to think of what to get her."

Andy looked like he was going to protest again until Hermione said, "I was going to ask you if you planned to spend the holiday break with us. We're going to set up a giant tree and I've already heard the elves talking about plum pudding. Maybe you could earn a little pocket money by helping set things up if you were around?"

"You'd let me stay?" Andy asked, stumbling over the words.

"We could use the break to set up a room for you for real," Theodore said. "You're here so much I was thinking you should stop sleeping in a guest room and pick out a suite in the family wing, decorate it with all that gaudy Gryffindor red and gold or some such." He gave Andy a small shove. "Go get your cloak and let's head out."

After the boy had run off, Theodore frowned at Hermione. "He doesn't need to work to earn money," he said. "He's not a servant, Hermione. He can buy his friends presents on my knut. It's not like I'd even notice the expense."

"He doesn't want to take charity," Hermione said. "Give him a sop for his pride, Theodore." She pulled him into a hug. "How are you doing?"

"Dreadful," he said. "But I'd rather not talk about it." She held on more tightly and they stood together until he shook himself free so he could go on his made up errand and help Andy buy a present for a friend.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Dating note: In 1999, Chanukah started on December 4. December 3 was a Friday._**


	259. Chapter 259 (Marking Essays)

Hermione groaned and pushed back the pile of essays. The way a lot of students at Hogwart wrote was appalling. Quills didn't exactly encourage good handwriting but illegibility was only the beginning. They didn't know what a thesis statement was. The idea of supporting arguments seemed alien to them. Merlin forbid they actually do research and citation seemed to be against their personal belief systems.

And the spelling. It made her want to weep.

"Draco," she said. He didn't look up from the book he was using to hide his face. "Draco!" she said more loudly and he graced her with a vague 'mmm' noise.

"How did you learn to write?" she asked.

"Governess," he said. "More than one as I tended to drive them off. I thought I told you that ages ago."

Hermione looked back down at the essay in front of her.

 _the darkk arts is bad because they are dar and I don't like dark things because their bad. when you do darkk arts you get sic and gorss and sometimes you lose your nose and go crazy andthat's why its important to be a good witch like galinda!_

She'd gone to a primary school and learned maths and spelling and how to read and if she'd turned in an essay like this she'd have been kept after school to rewrite it and that was when she'd been ten. If she hadn't been a witch she'd have started formal Latin the year she went off to Hogwarts. "What do people do who can't afford governesses?" she asked. "Ron. What did Molly do with Ron and the rest?"

Draco set down his book and opened his mouth and then closed it again. Hermione watched him control his childish urge to suggest all sorts of improbable things Molly Weasley might have done and finally he said, "I assume she home schooled them. Plenty of people do that all the way through, really. I think only about half of British magical families send their children to Hogwarts. Some aren't powerful enough, some prefer to avoid the place and did even before the war."

Hermione thought back to Ron's essays. They hadn't been _great_ but they'd been significantly better than much of what she'd been reading and marking up all afternoon. "She did fairly well," she muttered.

"Told you not to do so many essays," Draco said. "But would you listen? No."

"I don't think the solution to this is not to assign writing," Hermione said. "How can people just send children off to Hogwarts without so much as… sometimes I think some of these children can barely read!"

"Probably true," Draco said. He sighed and closed the book and set it aside. "It's not a perfect system," he said, and Hermione snorted because that was obviously true. "It's already a strain on resources to run one free school for everyone ages 11-17," Draco said. "You've seen the budgets Percy and Susan bring home."

She nodded because he was right. Hogwarts was free to all students and though they were expected to purchase their own supplies and books, a fund was maintained for the truly indigent. It was hideously expensive to run and funding was never adequate; she remained unclear exactly how the Ministry funded government works but tariffs and import taxes seemed to be the main source of income. Setting up a government run primary system was not doable, even if people were interested in such a thing, and she doubted many were.

"I don't know what to do," she said. "Do I just start including basic writing and research skills as part of the Defense curriculum? That would take away from the time we need to cover the things that are on the exams and I don't want to strip away the ethics portion of the class." Even, she thought as she looked down at the essay in front of her, if the more complex concepts didn't seem to reach every student.

Draco looked like he was swallowing a fly but he managed to say, "You should talk to Molly Weasley. If she managed to prepare her children for Hogwarts adequately, she might have some ideas on how the whole magical primary system should work."

Hermione looked down at what she suspected was meant to be the next paragraph in the essay in front of her.

 _history teached us that the darkk arts are really super bad and history is historical so you shouldnt do them the end_

"Maybe I'll do that," she muttered. "After Christmas."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - OK, I couldn't resist the nod to Wicked and Galinda._**


	260. Chapter 260 (Azusa and Hermione talk)

"Professor?" Hermione looked and made an encouraging noise. Azusa hovered. She'd stood by her desk and picked up her bag and then put it down again. "Is something the matter?" she asked the girl.

"I just," she wrung her hands a few times and then said as quickly as she could, "I just wanted to let you know I'd be fasting this month and I didn't want you to worry?" The sentence ended as a question, the tone going up as if the girl weren't sure what the response would be, and Hermione sighed.

"Sit," she said.

Azusa sank back into the seat at her desk with a worried line creasing her forehead.

"Why are you fasting?" Hermione asked.

The little first year slid her foot along the floor and muttered, "Ramadan." Hermione wanted for more of an explanation. One thing she'd learned living with Theo and Draco - and now Blaise - was that if you were quiet people ended up telling you things. Often they told you more things than you wanted to know. Sometimes, especially if it were Theodore, a lot more than you wanted to know.

"It starts on Thursday," Azusa said. "It's… I have to fast all month."

"You can't eat anything for a month?" Hermione asked, sure she'd heard that wrong.

"Not during the day," Azusa confirmed. "I mean, I'm not going to _starve._ I can eat before the sun comes up, and after sunset. It's just… I won't eat at meals and I didn't want you to worry."

Hermione smiled at the girl, relieved it seemed to be a sensible restriction. Azusa was such an easy student, unlike the would-be Gryffindor prankster who kept getting caught and unlike Andy, who made her jaw tense every time she thought about him. Something had to be done but she wasn't sure what. "Thank you for telling me," she said. "I'll pass the word along so the rest of the staff knows not to worry. " She began to gather her own things as she asked, "Do you need me to set up meal times for you, or have the elves already taken that into their capable hands?"

The girl shook her head and then said, speaking rapidly again, "The elves are all set. And, I mean, it's not _compulsory_ for me because I'm still…." She stopped and turned red and Hermione looked at her curiously. "I'm still a child," Azusa muttered.

Hermione still didn't follow her but just said, "But you want to?"

Azusa nodded and then said, the words barely muttered, "If I needed...girl things… who do I go to? You?"

"Girl things?"

Hermione was still having trouble following her until the girl muttered something about "for bleeding" and then she understood.

"Well," she said, "Madam Pomfrey keeps a shelf of supplies in the Infirmary that you can help yourself to, and if you would find that embarrassing, I can fill a drawer in my office with things you could come and take whenever you needed." She looked at the girl. "Have you - ," she began to ask, but the girl waved her hands in front of her in horror and Hermione stopped talking.

"I'm still a child," Azusa said again, "I just wanted to know for when it mattered."

"Of course," Hermione said. She looked at the girl, who still hadn't gotten up. "Is there anything else?"

Azusa took a deep breath. "If I wanted to wear the hijab, do you think anyone would... would people be mean to me?"

"Not unless they aspired to spending the rest of the year writing lines in detention," Hermione said without thinking. It must have been the right response, however, because a smile crept over Azusa's nervous face.

"You'd give people detention?" she asked. "If they said… stuff?"

"As unpleasant a one as I could manage," Hermione reassured the girl. She opened a drawer in her desk and began sorting through the things one accumulated in

spare drawers and on extra shelves. Somewhere she knew she had…. there. She pulled out a red and gold scarf Draco had given her that she'd never found a use for. The thing was still in the orange box it had come in, though the corners of the box were a bit dented from spending time in her drawer. She didn't think Draco would mind her passing it along to this nervous child. "Would this suit?" she asked.

The girl's eyes widened when she saw the name on the box. "You'd give that to me?" she asked.

Hermione could see her fingers itching to hold it and handed the box over with a laugh and watched as the girl lifted the lid and pulled out the silk. "Why not have a head scarf in your House colors?" she asked. "It'll match your tie." She suddenly feared it was inappropriate and added, "I mean, if that's okay."

The girl draped the scarf around her face with such pleasure Hermione couldn't help but smile. "I've been afraid to wear one," she said. "I was afraid people would make fun."

"It's hard to be different," Hermione said as she watched the girl.

"I figured people would notice when I wasn't at meals," Azusa said. "It's hard to be brave, though."

"I know," Hermione said. She stood up and held out her hand. "Want me to walk you up to the Tower?"

Azusa shook her head, however. "I'll be fine," she said. "Thanks, Professor Granger. You're the best."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you to mvrgxrnstxrn for beta reading to try to keep me from mangling my depiction of the experience of Muslim girl at a British boarding school. She does her best and any failure is wholly my fault._**

 ** _And, as always, thank you to Shayalonnie, who alpha reads every last chapter._**

 ** _And mad love to all of you reading it. Your daily enthusiasm for this is the fuel that keeps it going no matter what._**


	261. Chapter 261 (Christmas Holiday Starts)

Hermione stepped out of the floo and dropped her bag to the floor. "We did it," she announced to the room. "The holiday. We made it."

Draco had come through first and he handed her a glass of mulled cider, part of the ongoing attempts the elves had made to actually _use_ all the apples this year instead of letting them _go to waste_ and tugged her forward. It was a good thing too, because Andy almost fell out of the floo behind her and would have mowed her over if she hadn't moved.

"Are you sure it's okay for him to be here?" Draco murmured in her ear as the boy ran out of the room, barreling into Blaise in the doorway before he mumbled apologies and tore off toward the kitchen.

"Why is that fucking kid here again?" Blaise asked but he'd ruffled Andy's hair as the boy passed him. "Is there enough cider for me?"

"It's fine," Hermione said. "I spoke to his father." Her pursed lips told them she didn't wish to go into any more details about her opinion of a man happy to let his only son spend Christmas at his teacher's house. Blaise's smile faltered; his own mother hadn't objected to his choice to stay with friends instead of going home.

Susan handed Blaise a glass. "There's enough cider for all of London," she said. "And I only exaggerate a little." Blaise took it from her and brushed her fingertips with his and everyone pretended not to see the way she stepped back from him as if she had been burned.

Blaise forced a smile onto his face. "I still haven't done any shopping," he said. "So I guess I'll just add the brat to my list. Anyone know what he likes?"

"Flying," Draco said, "but he's already got the best broom on the market."

"Chocolate and candy it is," Blaise said. "What about the rest of you?" He looked at Hermione's feet and sighed dramatically at the sight of her sensible flats. "Why must you all hurt me?"

Draco set his glass down and turned to Hermione, already bored by Blaise's ongoing shoe fetish. "Can we go have sex?" he asked. "I have survived little girls clinging to me, one meltdown over how a parent will 'kill' a student if I don't let him do extra credit to bring his marks up, a faculty holiday party with the worst wine it has ever been my misfortune to drink, and tomorrow we have to decorate a tree. Before I face that, I need - "

Before he could spell out what he needed, however, Hermione set her own glass down and, grabbing his hand, tugged him from the room leaving Blaise and Susan behind. Blaise smiled at Susan as gamely as he could, grateful to have been spared any detailed listing of what it was Draco wanted to do. "Where's Theodore?" he asked.

"Departmental party with Percy," she said. "Ministry."

"That must be uncomfortable," Blaise said. "All things considered."

"You have no idea," she muttered.

He nodded and looked down at the pointed toes of his brown leather shoes. "Did we overstep?" he asked. "When Percy and I… we didn't really ask you whether you wanted to be on the Wizengamot, we just… it's just that you'd be so good at it."

Susan set her own glass of cider aside and gave him a somewhat forced smile. "No, it's fine," she said. "Family business and all. It's not like I'm suited for anything else. Sensible shoes and power robes and… I'm not a socialite, that's for sure. Best to be useful." She moved toward the door. "If you'll excuse me, I have some things from work I wanted to read over."

Blaise was still watching her walk away when Percy and Theo flooed home. "You look a bit frazzled, if you don't mind my saying so," Percy said.

"Why are there glasses on every surface?" Theodore asked.

"Do either of you understand women?" Blaise demanded.

Percy and Theodore glanced at one another. "Is this about Susan?" Theodore asked after a moment.

"I asked if she minded we'd sort of railroaded her into our Wizengamot plans and she said something about how she had ugly robes, which is certainly true, and then took off to do some reading." Blaise was still staring through the open door as if he'd never been quite so confused in his life. "What does her utter indifference to fashion have to do with politics?"

Percy coughed into his hand. "Maybe she's a little intimidated by how well your, umm, past conquests tend to dress?" he suggested.

Blaise gave the man a scathing look. "Susan's much too smart to… I mean, look at her. In a few months we'll have her confirmed as one of the, if not _the_ , youngest member of the Wizengamot ever. She's the only woman I've ever met so self-assured she'll go out in those wretched, oversized jumpers." He shook his head. "I just don't understand women."

Percy exchanged another look with Theodore. "I'm shocked to find that no, you really don't," he said.


	262. Chapter 262 (Three Snippets)

"I'll meet you upstairs," Theodore said, and Percy nodded. They'd already made plans to go into Diagon Alley the next day and shop, and they were meeting Pansy and Charlie for lunch, and the elves had promised to have the tree up so the humans could decorate it after dinner. It was a long day, a holiday with friends and chosen family, and it would be lovely. It would be the perfect day to spend before the holiday started.

So perfect. So lovely.

Once Percy had disappeared through the door and around a corner, Theodore pulled a flask out of his pocket and tipped it back into his mouth. After he swallowed, he picked up a glass of the abandoned apple cider and drank it as well to hide the smell and taste of the alcohol. He'd been pleased to discover high-end Muggle vodka was almost undetectable. No smell. No taste. Just the sweet erasure of his feelings without anyone having to know about it, and if he hated himself for needing it, well, he deserved hatred. He was nothing but a Death Eater's son and he had the bad taste to feel devastated at the loss of the murdering, wretched man.

He put the flask away and left the room to go upstairs. As long as no one found out he was drinking again, it would be fine. Nothing could go wrong.

. . . . . . . . . .

Andy sat in the room that had been his since the summer. It was officially a guest room but his in all the ways that mattered. He had his spare books here. He had a letter Trista had written him here. He had an old Cannons shirt Draco had tossed him one day when he'd been pushed into the duck pond by Crina and never asked for again. He'd filled the room with little tokens of magical belonging because at his real home he didn't talk about the magical world. His father didn't want to see school books from Hogwarts, or hear how he'd successfully passed a difficult transfiguration exam. He certainly hadn't wanted to hear about that awful first year with the Carrows and when Andy had suggested, his voice shaking, that maybe he could just go to the local school instead, his father had dismissed the idea. People like him went up to _that school_.

So he'd gone back, terrified, and then it had been okay, and now he was here and he was so scared this would go away. He'd do something wrong, and these casual adults who swore in front of him, and who took him out to get presents for his friends without even looking at the galleons they tossed on the counter, and who seemed to care, would decide they didn't want some thirteen year old kid in the way, and they'd send him back to his father and the silence of his real bedroom.

"I'll just be perfect," he said out loud to himself. "I won't ask for anything and I'll be polite and nothing will go wrong."

. . . . . . . . . . .

Blaise tried to tie the bow and swore again. No matter what he did, the thing looked like it had been mangled by one-pawed squirrels. He figured that was fitting. No matter what he said or did around Susan, it seemed to be the wrong thing, and everyone else seemed to be just amused that the playboy couldn't get it right. He'd taken her out shopping, and that had just depressed her. He'd never known a girl who didn't like fancy lunches and fashion treats. He'd told her she was smart and she'd stalked off mumbling incomprehensible things about how all she was good for was politics.

Who dismissed being the youngest woman on the Wizengamot ever as all she was good for? It didn't even make sense.

He tried to tie the bow around her present again and somehow just made it worse.

He would give her this present on Christmas, and it would be perfect, and she would stop seeing him as the playboy arse who wasn't good for anything except screwing nameless models and give him a chance. As long as he was just perfect and didn't make any more mistakes it would be fine. What could possibly go wrong?


	263. Chapter 263 (Christmas Shopping)

The first stop on the day of holiday errands was Weasleys' Wizards Wheezes. Theodore had brought Andy here to get his Chanukah present for Sari, but the boy had ducked in, grabbed the first thing that came to hand, mumbling the entire time he didn't want to impose. This time Theodore handed him a list of names and instructed him to do as he was told and buy Christmas presents for all the hooligans in Nott Manor, including Pansy, who was coming to visit and who, in fact, they would see at lunch.

The boy still looked hesitant so Theodore added, "You aren't going to make _me_ pick out things for this lot, are you? Hermione still grumbles about the dragon charm I got her last year."

"What's wrong with a dragon charm?" Andy asked, his eyes wide.

"Merlin's baggy pants, but I don't know," Theodore said. "But if you pick it out she can't complain, so do me a favor here, kid, and do the shopping."

Percy took Theodore's hand as they stood out of the way of the rising tide of last minute shoppers and watched the boy slip through the store, his excitement growing as he chose item after item. "You're good with him," Percy said.

Theodore shrugged. "He's a good kid," he said. "His father's a piece of work, but what can you do?"

A woman walked by, saw the two men holding hands, and sniffed audibly as she turned away.

"We have a product for that cold, ma'am," George said, walking up to her. "You may find the line of Bigotry Bon-Bons clear that judgement problem right up." He looked almost sincerely sad as he added, "There is the minor side effect of the itchy rash, but you'll be unable to sniff."

"Well," the woman huffed in stoked outrage, "I've never been treated with such - "

"Thoughtfulness and consideration, exactly," George said. He slipped a box into her hand that Theodore noted, trying not to laugh, really was labeled _Bigotry Bon-Bons: Curing What Ails You_. "The girl at the register can help you."

Percy was trying to look disapproving as he asked, "Does it really cause an itchy rash?"

George clapped him on the shoulder. "Only on your sensitive bits," he said. "How are you doing?" The last bit seemed to be directed more at Theodore, who smiled tightly.

"Rash free," was all he said.

George laughed. "How is it someone with a sense of humor fell for my brother?"

"He's hung," Theodore said, his tone deadpan. Percy rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand and seemed to be silently asking whatever powers might be listening for patience as George grinned.

"Good to know," George said. "Or not really." He turned and looked at Andy, who was himself looking at cheap necklaces. "Who's the kid?"

Theodore tried to figure out how to explain Andy. What was their relationship? "He's a bit of a stray I picked up," he said at last as the boy came bounding over to them, a basket full of novelty items on his arm. He was going on excitedly about how he'd never even _seen_ stuff like this before because it wasn't allowed up at school, and, well, he couldn't have it at home.

"Why can't you have it at home?" George asked, always the businessman trying to discern buying patterns. If parents were banning his products he wanted to know why.

"My dad," Andy began, then stopped and flushed. "He doesn't like magic," he said as George watched him.

George flicked a glance to Percy who mouthed the words 'fucking tosser' and George nodded, message sent and received.

"So you're a bit like Harry, then," he said. He took the boy's basket and began making his way to the registers. "He grew up with an uncle who hated magic, too."

"Harry _Potter_?" Andy asked. Harry's legend as the savior and golden boy tended to gloss over his childhood and even the people who knew him best didn't tend to reminisce about their friend's abusive home life as a boy. Theodore realized in some shock that Andy had no idea he wasn't the first wizard raised by a man who despised the very essence of what he was. He was silently cursing himself for mucking up with the kid yet again as George went on.

"Oh yes," he said, ringing up items and putting them into a bag. "Dreadful rotter, his uncle. I fantasized a couple of times about locking him in a room with old Voldy, just for a bit. Never did, of course, but he would have deserved it."

"My dad's not that bad," Andy said hastily. "He just misses my mum and magic reminds him of her."

"Good to hear," George said. He passed the bag over and Theodore handed the man a pile of galleons, both of them in silent agreement to keep the cost from the boy at the counter.

Percy eyed his brother. "You coming to the Christmas party?" he asked.

George nodded. "Got the invitation," he said. "Malfoy's giant owl tried to take a chunk out of me and I'm _still_ coming." He smirked a little. "Ron too."

"Charlie too," Percy said. "Since he and Pansy are home for the holidays."

"And Ginny," Andy said. "She's promised to show me a new trick she developed!"

"Five of you," Theodore said. "Merlin, I might as well rename the place Burrow Two."

"Everyone but Bill," George said. "He and Fleur say they aren't up to traveling yet."

"Everyone but Bill and Fred," Percy said.

George nodded, and blinked his eyes a few times rapidly before shaking his head.

"Do you have a toilet I could use?" Theodore asked before the man could say anything. Once there he pulled a flask out of his pocket and swallowed a generous mouthful, not even flinching at the burn of the clear alcohol. He put the flask away, popped a mint in his mouth, and left to follow Percy and Andy to their next stop: lunch with Pansy.

George stopped him at the door, one hand on his shoulder. "It doesn't help," he said quietly.

Theodore shook off the hand. "I don't follow you," he said.

"If you ever want to talk about it," George said. "You know where I am."

Theodore hurried after his partner and whatever Andy was without a word.


	264. Chapter 264 (Lunch with Pansy)

Their next stop was lunch with Pansy, who look one look at Andy and groaned.

"What?" the boy asked, nerves in his eyes and his hands tightening on the handles of his shopping bag.

"It's just that seeing you makes me realize I've become an adult," she said. "A _boring_ adult."

"How is that?" Theodore asked as he sat down at the table.

Pansy shrugged and said, "Because all adults seem to be compelled to inform children they have grown and my very first thought on seeing Andy was that he was taller." She poured herself more sparkling water and waved them all to seats. "Proof I'm now mature, I suppose."

"Never going to happen," Theodore said. "You'll be a spiteful child until you die."

Pansy raised her glass in his direction. "Here's hoping," she said. She signaled the waiter and, after a rapid conversation in Spanish Theodore couldn't follow, informed the rest of them that she had ordered and they would eat what she had selected and like it.

Charlie laughed and rested his hand on the back of her neck, one finger playing with a strand of hair that had escaped a twist. "You're such a menace," he said.

Theodore muttered something that might have been 'better you than me' and moved his foot quickly so Pansy couldn't shove the pointy toe of a shoe Blaise would have approved of into his ankle with force. She'd gotten cleaned up, probably to please her harpy of a mother, and looked every inch the pureblood center of power. The look went well with the way she toyed with her glass before saying, "So… Susan."

"You object?" Percy asked.

"No," she drew the word out. "It's a good choice," she said. "Susan's good with people and if she's not as clever as Hermione or you, she's not stupid either."

"So you'll - "

"Of course I will," Pansy said. "Not that my support would do her a lot of good, but whatever I can do, I will." The waitress deposited a large plate of bread in the middle of the table and took off without another word and Pansy ripped a piece off and began pouring olive oil out of a small pitcher. "Enough politics. You two still all cute and shite?"

"He puts up with me," Percy said. He glanced at Charlie. "George says he's coming."

Charlie's eyes widened. George hadn't gone out much, other than back to the Burrow, since the end of the war. He'd thrown himself into running his shop and developing products and had claimed, whenever asked, that he was fine and just too busy to socialize. "That's good," he said. He took a piece of bread Pansy handed him and dipped it into her plate of olive oil. "Is Angelina around?"

Percy smiled. "I can check," he said.

"The more the merrier and all that," Theodore said. "Parties are good with lots of people."

"They are," Pansy agreed. She leaned forward onto her elbows, a breach of manners that would have made her mother hyperventilate, and studied Andy. "How's school."

"You have gotten old," he said.

Theodore buried his face in his hands and tried not to laugh. Pansy looked momentarily offended, then amused, and she said, "I bet you use those newfangled owls. Back in my day we _walked_ our messages where we wanted them to go. And we liked it."

"I do," Andy said. "And brooms too."

"Brooms!" Pansy made a show of clutching at her neck. "You'll fall off and die. Brooms are dangerous. There aren't enough sticking charms… I hope you wear a helmet all the time, not just for Quidditch, and maybe knee pads and I hope you're eating enough - "

Theodore snorted somewhat loudly.

" - because a growing boy needs his food and do you have a girlfriend yet?" She leaned back. "Have I covered all the basics of boring adulthood in one go?"

"What if he doesn't like girls?" Charlie asked.

"Or a boyfriend," she amended.

"Based on the way Draco's ducklings follow him around," Theodore began, stopping when he saw how red Andy was turning.

"Shut up," the boy muttered.

Pansy grinned at him. "I take it that means girls?"

Andy turned redder.

"You should get him a room of his own," Pansy said. "A real one, not a guest room. That way he can invite girls over and take them upstairs and you can pretend not to know what he's doing." She patted Andy on the hand. "Let Mama Pansy teach you contraceptive charms. Theodore's never needed them, so he's probably a little rusty."

"I'm going to die," Andy muttered as he slouched lower in his chair.

"Ready to talk about how school is yet?" Pansy asked as she tore a bite out of her bread with her teeth. "'Cause I can do this for hours."

"School's good," Andy said hastily. "Really good. So good."


	265. Chapter 265 (Decorating the Tree)

The tree dwarfed the room. Nott Manor hadn't been built with modest proportions or humble architecture and, despite that, the elves had still found a tree that made the main drawing room look small. Fairy lights danced in the branches, all save one sullking fairy who squatted on one fir tip and refused to glow despite the three fairies hovering near and berating her.

"There's always one," Draco said in an aside to Hermione as they watched the fairy drama. She tried, with limited success, not to giggle.

The elves had hung glass balls in silver and gold all over the tree and real icicles hung from branches, charmed to stay frozen despite the roaring fire in the room. Piles of boxes filled with ornaments had been brought down from the attics. Andy stared at the whole scene, trying to muster the cool indifference of the young adolescent. It didn't work. His mouth gaped as he touched one of the icicles and realized it wasn't Muggle plastic. "It's real," he said in wonder.

"Magic," Theodore said. "It isn't all bad." He squatted down by one of the battered boxes and pulled the flaps back. "Let's see what we've got."

There were rocking horses that neighed and jostled one another to get to the head of the line. There were tiny wheels that spun around and around, symbolizing the turn of the year. Drummer boys marched and dancing girls leapt and winter birds happily moved from the box to the branches where they began to roost. Theodore pulled out ornament after ornament and passed them off to the assembled helpers, and, one by one, the lot of them took the decorations and added them to the tree. His hand faltered when he pulled out a tiny piano with a little figure plunking out a traditional carol, but he passed the ornament to Percy, stood up, and brushed some of the dust from the boxes off his trousers.

"I need to run to the loo," he said. "Could one of you take this over until I get back?"

Percy hung the piano player near the top and bent down to keep handing the little decorations out. Draco laughed at the Quidditch player who couldn't quite catch the Snitch and Hermione let a hand rest on Andy's shoulder. "Happy?" she asked him.

"This is great," he said.

The tree hadn't been the only thing the elves had set themselves to that day. While Andy had been out with Theodore shopping and having lunch with Pansy, the elves had prepared a suite for him in the family wing of the manor. Hermione had walked in on them hanging wallpaper and had a wallpaper paste brush thrown at her for her trouble. It was nice wallpaper. Gold lions sat and licked their paws and yawned from the deep red paper. She wasn't sure where the elves had found something quite so Gryffindor, and she was fairly sure the boy would outgrow the urge to plaster his House affiliation over every surface, but for right now it was perfect.

"It is, isn't it?" Draco said. He poured himself another glass of the cider. Along with paper hanging, the Nott elves had taken up apple pressing, and there was cider with every meal and for all occasions and woe betide the human who didn't partake. They'd ensured what they made was suitable for 'Master Nott' and his 'problem'. Elves could be circumspect when they wished to be, and, however free they might technically be, looking after their idiot people was a task they took most seriously.

"Christmas is hard," Susan said quietly. They all looked down at that because it was true.

"I should try to find some of my childhood ornaments," Hermione said into the sudden, uncomfortable silence. "We could add the hideous thing I made gluing dried pasta and glitter to a circle of cardboard onto the tree."

"Dried pasta?" Blaise looked at her in some horror. "Why?"

"Muggle crafts," she said. He gave an exaggerated shudder.

"I can have my mother send over a few things to contribute," Draco said. "I once painted a tree on some clay."

"What's so odd about that?" Susan asked him.

"It was hot pink," Draco said blandly. They all looked at him and pictured a very pale little boy covered in pink paint holding up his homemade Christmas ornament for Narcissa and Lucius to see. "My father tried to be enthusiastic," he added. "'That's so… pink.' he said. 'So very bright. So original. What a, uh, clever boy you are.'"

"Did you hang it on the tree?" Hermione asked with delight, picturing the confused father determined to be positive.

"Every year," Draco said, "No matter what excessive theme my mother came up with, that pink tree was front and center." He took another swallow. "Until Voldemort, of course. We didn't decorate those years."

"I want to see it," Blaise said. "And this pasta monstrosity, as much as the idea is appalling." He nudged Susan. "What hideous craft projects lurk in your past?"

She flushed. "Nothing, really. I'm not very artistic."

Blaise raised his brows. "We're talking about gluing stale pasta to boards and painting pink trees. This isn't exactly museum quality stuff here, Susan." Still, she shook her head and refused to discuss anything she might have done and he shrugged. "I can't contribute anything either," he said, tossing back the rest of his own cider. "My mother wasn't one for cute little kid decorations. She had a florist come in and do the house, and that was that."

"Me either," Andy offered tentatively.

Hermione and Percy exchanged a look and she said, "Maybe we should all make gingerbread men. We could decorate them and put them on the tree and then we'd all have something." She nudged Draco. "You can frost yours pink."

"I'll do that," he said, dropping a kiss onto her temple. "Though I'd rather eat them."

"Gingerbread men?" Theodore asked, returning to the room. He picked up the pitched of cider, poured himself a glass, and drank half of it down. "That sounds great."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, as always, for your endless support. Your love is the fuel that keeps this going as we approach the end._**

 ** _Several people asked for a rundown of the ages of the OC Hogwarts students:_**

 ** _* Andy & Sari, third years  
_** ** _* Draco's Slytherin ducklings, second years  
_** ** _* Azusa, first year_**


	266. Chapter 266 (Christmas Eve)

Susan found Blaise sitting in front of the tree after the rest of the house had gone to bed. They'd finished the tree and fetched wrapped packages from all their room and the final result made hedonism look restrained. They'd all overdone it, not only for one another but for Andy, who they'd all showered with enough presents he could have been four boys and still been overwhelmed. Crookshanks had curled up on one of the boxes, Clem sitting between his paws. The half-kneazle had squished the box with his bulk and Susan hoped it didn't contain anything breakable.

"Pretty, isn't it?" she asked.

He shrugged and tipped his head toward the other chair and Susan settled down and watched him. "I hate Christmas," he said abruptly; his mouth contorted for a moment before he gained control of himself. "My mother, you know, new husband every two or three years and she always cared most about reflecting their own traditions back at them so they'd feel comfortable." He twisted that last word into one filled with fury. "The first year I was at Hogwarts I stepped off the train for the Christmas holiday and she said her husband du jour had already decorated the whole flat so I wouldn't need to worry about that."

"You liked decorating?" Susan asked.

He shrugged. "Didn't matter what I liked. She may have thought she was doing me a favor. She may have not cared. I was just expected to go along with whatever the plans were. This one doesn't want a tree? That year I took a knife from the kitchen and sawed a little tree down and put it in my room with decorations made out of paper."

"How old were you?" she asked.

"Ten," he said. He took a swallow of his drink and eyed it. "I keep it in my room," he said. "Don't tell Theo. I wouldn't have it out but he and Percy are off asleep or fucking or whatever."

"I'm sorry," Susan said.

Blaise shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Don't pity the rich boy, Susan. Whether the presents were under a tree covered with someone else's memories or piled on a table, I never went without." He took another drink and then said, "I just hate Christmas. It belongs to other people, never to me." He paused and she tried to think of what to say but before she could he added, "Everyone did a nice job with the tree, though."

"They did," Susan said. She folded her feet under her and licked her lips before she asked, "What do you want?" Blaise's head jerked to face her and she added as quickly as she could, "For Christmas, I mean. I don't mean some kind of big life goal thing. Just… socks? A new broom?"

"I think it's a little late to go shopping," he said. "If I told you I was dying for a box of chocolates how would you go about getting them now?"

"Then a life goal," she said, bristling a little. "Since socks are too complicated."

"Sorry."

She crossed her arms and glared at him a little before turning her attention back to the tree and a battle going on between two of the fairy lights.

"I'm an arse," Blaise offered.

"Not your holiday," Susan said. "I understand."

"What do _you_ want?" Blaise asked her. "Books? Socks?"

She shrugged and kept staring at the tree. "To be fourteen and be drinking champagne on Christmas Eve, allowed because it's a special night, let the girl have a treat. To be nine and to be fairly sure that it was my parents buying the presents but not wanting to ask because what if that meant they'd stop?"

"To be innocent," Blaise murmured. "Going to be hard to find that in a shop."

"Well," Susan said with a laugh, "I'll never be that again. No white wedding dress for me."

"Why not?" Blaise asked.

She looked at him then, incredulous. "I'm… are you joking? White means you're _innocent_. It means you're _untouched_. It means - "

"It means you're a bride," he said. "That's all." He gave her a sad grin. "My mother wears white every time."

"I was… Blaise," she said as if she could will him to understand. "I had sex with almost every boy at Hogwarts, I - "

"I had sex with a bunch of stupid models whose names I can't even remember," he countered. "Does that mean I'm somehow sullied for life?"

Susan blinked a few times and didn't respond. She'd never have expected him to dismiss all those stunning girls as 'stupid'. She must have been silent for too long because Blaise threw back the rest of his drink, stood up, and muttered, "I guess it does, at least to you," before he took a few steps toward the door.

"Mistletoe," Susan said.

He stopped and turned. "What?" he asked.

"Be careful at the door," she said. "They hung mistletoe."

Blaise looked over at the plant, the white berries almost lost in the giant silver bow. He looked back at Susan and then, with cool deliberation, went and stood under the mistletoe.

"You're an idiot," she said as he crossed his arms and smiled at her. "You're stuck there now."

"Until someone kisses me," he agreed. His smile shone in his dark face and her gut clenched with how unbelievably beautiful he was. It wasn't fair for a man to have eyelashes like that, or cheekbones like that, or a mouth like that. It wasn't fair at all. "It would be better than socks," he said. "A life goal, if you will."

She huffed and she crossed and uncrossed her arms but she finally said, "Kissing me?"

He shrugged and said, "I've never aimed low."

That made something like butterflies happen, and she told herself she wasn't some shy girl from nowhere. She'd had sex with _almost every boy in her year_ and she could handle kissing this man.

She could.

Even if he made her gut clench and her stomach fill with butterflies or moths or maybe that was bees, and even if he had the longest lashes and even if he implied kissing her was something to aspire to, which was ridiculous given the girls he'd dated in Italy. Even then, she could.

She couldn't just leave him stuck there all night.

Just one peck.

She got up and controlled how unsteady she felt as she walked over to him and looked up at his face. She expected a smirk, rather like what Theo or Draco would have had in his place. Instead he looked as nervous as she felt. When she pressed her lips to his, they were soft, softer than she would have expected, and he took his hands and put them along the small of her back. She realized she had swayed into him and his mouth had gotten harder as the kiss became more demanding and his hands slid up her back until his fingers were tangled in her hair and her mouth was open and they were truly kissing and it wasn't one peck. It was searing. It was frantic. It was…

She wrenched her mouth away and looked at him. She could feel her pulse pounding in the hollow of her throat and suspected her eyes were as dilated as his were.

"Much better than socks," he said, his voice husky. "Susan - "

"Good night," she said.

"Happy Christmas," he said. He ran a hand over his short hair. "I'll see you in the morning?"

"You will," she agreed, and then almost fell as she fled back to the safety of her room.


	267. Chapter 267 (Dramione Christmas Morning)

Draco groaned when Hermione nudged him. "Just five more minutes," he muttered, and pulled the covers over his head. When she nudged him again he peeked out so one, squinting, grey eye glared at her over the very edge of the blanket. "Why are you tormenting me?" he asked.

"It's _Christmas_ ," she said.

"And we're _adults_ ," he said. "We can _sleep in_."

"Well," she said, "as mature and responsible adults, we could go downstairs and eat the breakfast the elves have made and open some presents."

He gurgled incoherently at her and hid again.

"Or we could have sex," she suggested.

Draco pulled the covers down and eyed her, noticing for the first time that she seemed to be wearing a green _something_ that had silver trim and not a lot of fabric. It wasn't a brassiere, certainly, because it didn't actually cover her breasts, and he was fairly sure it didn't count as knickers because it didn't cover anything in that region _either,_ but, whatever it was, he approved.

"I could be persuaded," he said.

Hermione tugged the blankets down and he laced his fingers behind his head and smirked up at her. She rolled her eyes but took on the task of 'persuading' him and he let himself be, well, persuaded. It didn't take a tremendous amount of effort on her part and before long he'd rolled her over and straddled her. "Do I need to take this thing off," he asked. It didn't seem like he did, but he wasn't completely sure.

"No," she said. "Easy access."

"I love this," he said. "Whoever designed this was a genius."

When he was done, lying next to her again, and far more content about the idea of an early morning than he had been earlier, she said, "Happy Christmas."

"Our first together," he said. She made a noise about the year before and Draco snorted. "I'm pretty sure you woke up with _Theodore_ last year," he said. "I was back at the manor getting Clem and trying not to grind my teeth into dust, and you were snuggled up with a man who'd just been dumped."

"I did not wake him the same way," she said as if she were admitting something. Her faux confession made Draco laugh and he lay back, happier than he could say. The year before he'd been alone, fresh slices on his arm, worried the woman he'd grown to adore wouldn't be pleased with his proposal. This year that woman was in his bed wearing something glorious, her hair spread out across their pillows, the taste of her pleasure on his lips.

He reached a hand out to brush it along the line of her hip. "You aren't the worst thing that's happened to me," he said, afraid to be more direct.

She propped herself up on one arm and looked at him, her eyes briefly serious. "I'm glad," she said. "I've had worse things than you happen to me."

He ran his fingers over the scar that still puckered her shoulder from the fight in the Department of Mysteries. Curse scars never healed quite right and the skin rippled and twisted where the Death Eater had struck her. "Things are better now," he said, the words almost a question.

Hermione face took on a very smug expression, one that he'd expect to see on her damn half-Kneazle. "Oh yes," she said. "After your enthusiastic response to being persuaded, things are _much_ better now."

It took him a moment to follow her and then he goggled for a moment before his face mirrored her smug look. "Not the _worst_ thing," he said.

"No," she agreed. "Not the _very_ worst, certainly."

They could hear someone making noise and yelling somewhere outside their suite and Hermione sighed. "I managed to get into this on my own," she said, "but do you think you could undo it for me?"

Draco looked at the way the thing was laced and began to struggle with the knot. He pulled one black cord out, then another, and somehow the knot seemed to get bigger and he wasn't sure which end was the end he needed to free. "I fixed a Vanishing Cabinet," he muttered and he pulled an end through the knot again and nothing got any better. "I can get a woman undressed."

He squinted at the knot. Was he somehow making this worse?

"I can get your clothes off," he said again, but this time is sounded like he was reassuring himself. "I can."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Christmas morning fluffs :)_**


	268. Chapter 268 (Christmas Morning Coffee)

Theodore had woken before the sun had even begun to think about showing her face and he'd laid in bed and watched Percy come into slow focus as the room brightened. Funny how a year before he'd woken up next to Hermione, miserable and alone, his first real… whatever Neville had been… having run off.

He hadn't thought he'd ever find love again.

"Happy Christmas," the love he'd found said when he opened his own eyes. "You look good."

A smile tugged at the edges of Theodore's mouth. "I've been told I taste good, too," he said.

Percy and he set out on a morning course of exploring the veracity of that claim until they heard Blaise making noises in the corridor on his way to the first floor where he was undoubtedly seeking out coffee or tea. Theodore and Percy, sprawled by that point on the bed, sated and fingers interlaced, groaned in unison. "You'd think with no little kids in the house we could stay in bed until noon," Theodore said.

"Off to breakfast and presents?" Percy asked.

"Shower first," Theodore suggested, his eyes on Percy's abdomen. The other man glanced down and laughed.

"Shower first," he agreed.

. . . . . . . . . .

Blaise stalked down the hall, past the portraits of generations of Notts, and down the wide, gracious stairs. He hoped the elves had set out some kind of table with coffee and something to nibble on while he waited for the rest of the house to get up. The noises he'd heard as he'd passed Draco and Hermione's door suggested both that they were quite awake and that they put more faith in the soundproofing offered by old houses with thick walls than they should. If he twitted them about silencing charms would they be amused or would Granger tell him to bugger off? Hard to know, really. Probably safest to keep his mouth shut.

He dodged his way past the mistletoe lest he get caught for real and peered at the tree. He noticed for the first time that Theodore - or perhaps the elves - had set out a traditional cauldron for change. He reached into his pockets but they were empty and he shrugged. He'd make sure to fill them with coins the next time he was in his room. There wasn't coffee in that room, but in the dining room he found an entire sideboard filled with breakfast. He blew a kiss toward the kitchens. "You are the best, tiny elven friends," he said and poured himself a tiny cup of espresso and blessed the way a little courtesy got him the drink he preferred.

He'd settled into a chair and opened _The Daily Prophet_ by the time Andy appeared. "Good morning, brat," he said. "I assume the doughnuts are because of you?"

Andy looked at the breakfast table. The elves had interpreted his desire to take doughnuts into Sari as a love of jam doughnuts and had included a plate piled high with the treats. "Wow," the boy said as he grabbed one in each hand and flopped into a seat across from Blaise. "Happy Christmas," he added.

"Happy Christmas, kid," Blaise said. He pretended to study his paper and ignore the boy as he added, as if it were an afterthought. "You're a great kid. Good to have you around."

Andy slouched lower in his chair. "My dad - " he began.

"Is wrong," Blaise said. He folded the paper in toward himself so he could actually look at the boy. He'd taken a bite out of each doughnut and a lock of hair fell over a face that he probably hadn't washed. Blaise was sure what he had on was what he had slept in. "You end up getting anything for eyeliner girl?"

Andy perked up a little at that. "Yeah," he said, and then he began talking about girls and how confusing girls were. Blaise made mmm-ing noises in all the right places as he drank his coffee and watched the slouch in front of him move from sullenly unsure of his welcome to merely adolescent.

. . . . . . . . . .

Susan changed clothes three times before she gave up. It was Christmas morning, not a fashion show, and it wasn't like she'd ever look great anyway. The kiss had been… she wasn't sure what the kiss had been. It had been great. It had been butterfly-inducing, knee-melting, heart-rate-increasing great.

She had no idea what it meant. She'd been up much of the night, replaying it in her mind and she still was wholly unsure what it had meant or what it had been.

She needed coffee.

She was sure about that, at least.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Happy April Christmas :)**


	269. Chapter 269 (Opening Christmas Presents)

At first, Theodore felt that the best part of opening gifts was watching Andy. They'd all overdone it. Draco had given Hermione another charm for her bracelet and showered Andy with enough stuff that it looked like a toy shop had thrown up all over the room. Hermione had given Draco a set of cuff links and whole shelves of books to the boy. Blaise had outfitted him with enough fashionable robes he'd probably outgrow them before he wore them all.

Theodore would have worried about spoiling the boy if Andy hadn't looked awestruck at each additional box and bag.

Even Narcissa Malfoy had sent him a box with a subdued, appropriate tie. A dull gift, perhaps, but given how Andy's eyes had widened when he saw who it was from, Theodore suspected the woman had bought herself adoration for life at a low price.

She'd sent Hermione an Hermes scarf in her House colors, something that made Hermione laugh for reasons Theodore didn't quite understand. "Like son, like mother," she said.

"Maybe you'll keep this one," Draco said, though his fond look belied any implied criticism.

The present Harry sent Draco was the next marvelous thing about the morning as far as Theodore was concerned. He'd had sent his long time rival a box of children's Snitches, "Suitable for ages 3-7" the box read. Theodore waited for the explosion but all Draco did was snicker.

"What did you send him," Hermione asked. She sounded afraid and amused at the same time as she rolled the scarf up and tried to use it to tie her hair back.

"A fluffy, stuffed snake," Draco said. At Hermione's look he added, "It's super soft. Perfect for cuddling up with."

"For fuck's sake," Blaise muttered.

"They do this," Susan said. "Don't ask."

By the look on Blaise's face, he had no intention of ever asking.

When Theodore opened a box from Molly, he pulled out a jumper and stared at it in half-fear, half-wonder. He poked at the 'T' knit into it, and looked over at Percy, who seemed equally surprised. "Well," he said. "I'll have to write her a thank you note." His feet itched to run from the room and take refuge in the toilet, flask in hand. There was no graceful way to leave, however, and in the end he was glad he didn't because as great as Andy's reaction to being spoiled was, as funny as Draco and Harry's ongoing gift war was, as terrifying as a present from Percy's mother was, nothing topped Blaise and Susan.

The gifts had almost all been opened when Blaise fetched a small box with an unfortunate bow that failed to look festive in any way. "For you," he said, handing it to her.

The pair of them had been trying not to lean into one another all morning and Theodore had considered just shoving Susan so she fell into Blaise's lap and only rejected the idea because he'd probably end up spilling Blaise's espresso all over the furniture and have to endure a lecture from an irate elf as a result.

Susan's hands fumbled as she untied the bow and opened the small box. Theodore leaned over her so he could see and let out a low whistle when he saw the necklace. "This," Susan began, obviously unsure of what to say. This is too much, perhaps, or maybe this is beautiful.

"Let me put it on you," Blaise said, and lifted the necklace out of the box, unhooked the clasp, and slipped it around her neck. "It's a bit cliched, I admit, to get jewellery in Hogwarts House colours. We're all supposed to be out of school and not caring about that rot anymore, but it's an easy way to please and you are tricky to shop for."

"Slytherin girls love their emeralds," he continued, "Ravenclaws their sapphires, and, though why you'd want to wear a gem the colour of blood I don't know, but you can't go wrong with rubies for a Gryff."

Susan reached up her hand to touch the solitaire that sit perfectly in the hollow of her throat.

"But Hufflepuffs," Blaise went on. "You're the most precious of the lot, so it seems logical you'd need something special."

"What is that," Hermione said, leaning forward to look at the stone.

"Yellow diamond," Blaise said.

Susan's fingers spasmed on the rock and Theodore met Blaise's eyes. The man looked both smug and slightly nervous. 'Nice', Theodore mouthed and Blaise relaxed a little, then more as Susan leaned over and kissed him in thanks.

The kiss went on and on until Andy said, "Are they ever going to stop? I'm hungry."

And that turned out to be the best part of Christmas morning.

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - I pinned a yellow diamond necklace on the pinterest board for this story: www DOT pinterest DOT com / colubrina / rebuilding /**_


	270. Chapter 270 (The Christmas Party)

Pansy sashayed in the door and handed Theodore a host gift with a smirk on her face. "Happy Christmas," she said. "Miss me?"

"I live in perpetual grief that you were the only woman who could have made me straight and yet you refused," Theodore said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. "And now you're off in some Merlin-forsaken cottage raising cats."

She patted him on the arm. "Kneazles, love, keep it straight."

"I can't, Pansy," he said. "Now that you've abandoned me, I've given up all hope of such."

She laughed and reached down into her bag and pulled out another box, this one with holes in it and a ribbon. "Speaking of giving up hope," she said, "I have a present for Andy. It's as close as I could get to red and gold and, it's charmed to sleep right now, but that'll wear off as soon as he opens the lid."

Theodore looked at the gaily wrapped box with a festive ribbon and tell-tale air holes. "Pansy," he began, but she'd already spied Andy and had walked off to give the boy a pet she'd hadn't even asked about. "Rude," Theodore muttered. "Giving people pets without asking first." He stuck his hand out to Charlie who shook it. "Happy Christmas," he said.

"Same to you," the man replied.

Whatever else they might have said was cut short by Andy's shout, followed by loud, angry meowing.

"That one talks when it wants food," Charlie said. "She talks _a lot_."

"Shite," Theodore said, but he couldn't keep the grin off his face when Andy rushed out to the entry foyer, tiny kneazle in his hands.

"Can I keep her?" he asked.

"She's your responsibility," Theodore said. "You have to - "

"I will!" Andy promised. He buried his face in the kneazle's fur. "You beautiful girl," he cooed. "Look at what a pretty girl you are." The kneazle meowed as if to say, yes, it was all true, but where was the food, and Andy took off, presumably toward the kitchens to see if the elves knew what kneazles ate.

"Don't neglect your guest to play with that thing," Theodore yelled after him. At Pansy's look he added, "He invited one of the little Slytherin girls from last year, and her mum said yes, so he's got host responsibilities."

"They'll both play with the kitten all night," Charlie said. Theodore agreed that that was the most likely outcome, and led the couple back to the room where the main party was. Charlie commented on the cauldron he'd left out, a nod to traditional charity giving at the holidays, and dredged a handful of knuts out of one pocket to dump in. Theodore could remember his mother collecting hundreds of galleons at one party when he was little. She's laughed as she'd run her fingers through the coins before taking them to a shelter that had been set up off Diagon Alley for runaways. When she'd died the annual holiday parties had ended, and with them gone the cauldron had only collected dust for a dozen years or more. Now it was out again.

The elves had thrown open the sliding doors and connected the two parlors. The one remained dominated by the tree, the other had tables of food and fruited waters set up and groups of people, mostly recent Hogwarts graduates, mingling. Ron, Ginny and Draco were in the midst of a mostly polite, if someone strained, conversation about the chances of various Quidditch teams this year. Tracey had abandoned them to sit with Susan and Blaise, and the three of them seemed to be catching up with far more enthusiasm than Ron and Draco. Hermione had her arm around Neville and they seemed to be talking about some plant he had found at Rebuilding Day.

"I've managed to get it to propagate," Neville was saying as Theodore walked past and the pair smiled at one another. "And it had the most interesting germination process; you have to, well, I won't bore you, but Pomona says she's never seen one like it and now I'm sending cuttings off to herbologists all over Britain to see if we can identify the thing."

George Weasley nodded hello as he walked past. He'd sat down with Angelina, who Theodore didn't know but had met as she'd arrived. "So nice of you to invite me," she'd said as she handed him a host gift. "Never would have thought to see the day."

"We lived through it," Theodore had said. "Can't let it happen again."

"Never again," she agreed. She'd looked out over the assembled guests. "Susan will help."

"There are other seats," Theodore said, somewhat suggestively, but she'd laughed.

"Don't look at me," she said. "Not at George either. Percy's the guy you want, and you know it."

Theodore had smirked at her at that, unable to help himself and she'd laughed again. Friends, Theodore thought as he walked past her and George now. Never would have thought to see that day.

It was better than he'd expected. Better, certainly, than a cold philosophy and a colder grave.

Nevertheless, he slipped past the guests to duck into the toilet to have a swallow from his flask. That made things better still.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - April Christmas continues…**


	271. Chapter 271 (After the Party)

After the last guest had left, after Hermione had gone upstairs muttering about exhaustion and parties with Draco trailing after her, after Percy admitted he was also too tired to stay on his feet and likewise disappeared, Theodore sank into one of the soft armchairs and stared at the tree. Hermione had somehow found some pasta-based monstrosity from childhood and hung it. Draco had sweet-talked his mother into giving up the pink tree from his wee crafting days. Both ornaments hung, flanking the figurine of the little boy plunking a carol out on the equally little piano. Now that the room was quiet, Theodore could hear each tinny note. He'd played that song in a recital once.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his flask, took a deep swallow, and lay his head back. Staring up at the ceiling, he wondered where Clem was and hoped Andy's new kneazle wouldn't end up eating the little puffball. He looked over at the holiday cauldron, pocket change filling it, and took another swallow, then another, as he thought of his mother and the holiday parties she had thrown when he'd been so young getting to stay up and see all the guests arrive in their Christmas finery had been a treat.

"Happy Christmas, Mum," he said, raising his flask toward the cauldron. He took a swallow, then raised it toward the piano playing ornament. "Happy Christmas, Dad."

He was about to take another swallow when the door opened and Andy came skidding in, tiny kneazle held in one hand. He was looking for something, surely. Perhaps he'd planned to make off with a pile of leftover biscuits, or some of the scraps from the starter plates that were still sitting out on tables. The boy stopped and took one look at the flask in Theodore's hand and said, "No."

The word was flat. Andy repeated himself, somewhat more hysterically this time, "No!"

Theodore lowered the flask and flushed with guilt. Of all the people to catch him, it had to be Andy. "It's not - " he began, but it was, of course, and Andy knew it.

"You're drinking again," he said. He ran forward and snatched the flask from Theodore's hand and threw it across the room. It crashed into a vase that was probably priceless, shattered it, and began dribbling vodka out onto the oriental rug.

Theodore reflected that he'd never really cared for that vase.

"I'm sorry." Andy looked at the pieces of porcelain on the floor and began to shake. "I'll go pack my stuff. You won't want - "

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Theodore demanded. Some part of his brain knew if you were the _adult_ you weren't supposed to swear in front of children, especially not children who'd had pretty much nothing but shitty adults in their lives, but the vodka had erased his filter. "Why would you leave?"

"I broke the… I _yelled_ at you," Andy said. "I tried to be… but you won't…"

"Sit down," Theodore ordered and rubbed at his head. "Why would you have to leave?" he asked again. "Do you want to leave because I'm… I know I'm a shitty… I'm just a Death Eater's son, but I thought you liked being here."

"I _love_ being here," Andy said. He'd sat on the very edge of a chair as though prepared to bolt, the kneazle snuggled into the crook of his arm.

Theodore's addled brain noted that he'd never really seen a kneazle that small. "So, what's the problem?" he asked.

"I broke the - "

"Oh, who gives a shite?" Theodore slouched in his own chair. "Ugly thing. Break all of them. I don't care. This house is filled with crap no one wants." He looked over at his flask. The vodka, which he had wanted, had all soaked into the rug and was, he was sad to see, gone. He sighed. "Andy, no matter what, you always have a place here, okay? Break everything, burn the house down. We'll just set up camp in the greenhouses. There's nothing you can do to make us kick you out." He took a deep breath. "There's nothing you can do to make _me_ kick you out."

"Don't drink anymore."

It was a tiny little order and Theodore looked at Andy, who was trying not to cry; the false bravado on his face was painfully familiar but the promise he was welcome no matter what seemed to have emboldened him.

"Why do you care?" Theodore asked.

"Why are you doing it?" Andy countered.

Theodore opened his mouth and then shut it, not sure how to answer. It hurts too much to feel, he thought about saying. My daddy died, was another thought. At last he said something so true it burned coming out. "I don't feel like my life matters."

Andy flung himself across the space between them, squishing the baby kneazle so it made a meow of protest and dug its claws into Theodore's thigh, barely missing a testicle. The sound made Andy back off a little, however, and he muttered, "It matters to me."

Theodore could feel something stinging at his eyes. "You're a good kid," he began.

"I need you," Andy blurted out. "Please don't -." And then he stopped. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't have any right to ask you - "

"I'll stop," Theodore said. He took a deep breath. He could do this. "I'll stop," he said again.

He'd try, at least, he thought. He'd go see George tomorrow. He'd figure this out. He'd survived the Carrows and learned to pretend to torture children and he'd quit once before. He could do it again. He could. He hoped.

The sound of the little piano on the tree started up again, the endless repeat of its carol. The sun returns. The light shines on. Rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice.


	272. Chapter 272 (Confessions and Biscuits)

When Percy woke up, Theodore was sitting in a chair in their room. Whether the man had slept all night wasn't clear, but he was awake now, haggard looking, and had a silver flask in his hand. He tossed it over to bed with a hand that wasn't wholly steady and said, "I've been drinking again."

Percy started to speak but Theodore just kept going. "I hid it from you. I hid it from everyone. Andy caught me last night after the party and, - ." He stopped and swallowed hard enough that Percy knew he was trying to keep control of himself. "I would understand if you wanted to leave."

Percy rubbed his hand over his face. "Theodore," he said, "do you think you could stop trying to chase away everyone who loves you?"

"I'm a shitty - "

"Stop." Percy said. "Just stop."

"I have," Theodore said softly. "Andy threw the thing across the room, broke that awful vase - "

"The one with the anatomically improbable dryads?"

"That's the one."

Percy felt a brief spurt of triumph he'd pulled a smile to Theodore's face. They'd both commented how ridiculous the art on that particular decorative object had been. Anyone with breasts that large, magical tree nymph or not, would never have been able to dance without some form of support. And, more hilariously, some of the figures had displayed unlikely amounts of flexibility in their interactions with one another. The artist had had unrealistic expectations or a vivid fantasy life or both.

"He made me promise to stop." Theodore took another deep breath, the smile fading. "After he and that kitten went to bed, I dumped everything I had in the house."

"Good," Percy said. The simple word hovered between them. "I wish you'd told me," Percy added, though he wasn't surprised Theodore hadn't.

"I just," Theodore began, then fell silent again. They didn't say anything and just stared at one another. Or, rather, Percy watched Theodore who watched his bare feet. "I was going to go talk to George," he said. "He knew, somehow. Said if I wanted to talk, I knew where he was."

"Maybe get some sleep first," Percy suggested. He remembered George and how, for months after the Battle of Hogwarts, he'd refused to talk about much of anything. He'd gone over to his brother's flat once to bring dinner and every mirror had been smashed, the glass still lying on the floors. George had never talked to him about Fred's death - they'd never been close - but Percy wasn't a stupid man and he had an inkling how George had recognized a man who was hiding drinking.

"That's a good idea," Theodore said. He patted his face in a parody of vanity, his fingers scraping along the morning shadow. "I'm not looking my best and I think etiquette demands a certain amount of personal grooming when you face your demons."

"Demons are known to have very high standards," Percy agreed. He reached a hand out. "Come to bed."

When Theodore stretched out next to him he lay that hand on the man's shoulder. "We'll get through this," he said.

Theodore left a few hours later, a nap, a shower, and a kiss sending him on his way. The people left behind watched him go and then made somewhat forced merry as they mixed up gingerbread dough and rolled it out. Andy argued with Hermione whether the decorations were supposed to go on _before_ they cooked the men, or _after_ , and they finally agreed to do a test and bake one gingerbread man each way and see who was right. Draco surreptitiously added red dye to the frosting, resulting in a hoard of gingerbread men wearing hot pink. "What?" he asked in mock innocence as Hermione hit him on the arm. "It's tradition. You wouldn't want me to change tradition, would you?"

Even Blaise, who'd barely pried himself off Susan's side, laughed at that. "Oh, yes," he said. "The Malfoy heir mustn't change the way things are done. That would be unpardonable. Not to be thought of."

"Oh, shut up, you," Hermione said with a mock glower.

Draco took a dab of the pink frosting and plopped it on her nose, and they all pretended not to see Andy as he spooned hot pink sugar into his mouth, just as they all pretended they didn't notice Theodore was gone.

Theodore, who stood and knocked on the door of the flat about Weasleys' Wizards Wheezes. When George opened up, Theodore said only, "I want to stop. Help me."


	273. Chapter 273 (Tea with Narcissa)

As the holiday drifted to an end, as all the gingerbread men were eaten, as Andy pretended he didn't care his father hadn't minded if he spend all the break at Nott Manor, Narcissa invited Hermione out for tea. Even Theodore laughed about that, and he seemed fragile and so unsure these days that Hermione's heart was breaking, and so Hermione went. "Don't hex her," Draco said, only half in jest before Hermione left.

"If you do, take pictures," Theodore said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Narcissa sat in the tea shop, her napkin on her lap and her perfectly manicured nails wrapped around the dainty cup. Tiny cakes sat on a plate in the center of the table and discrete looks slipped across the room as other women sipping tea and nibbling on petit-fours didn't stare at the Malfoy matriarch, one of the last two remaining Blacks (though, of course, the other one had been burned from the tapestry, didn't you know, married a _Muggle-born)_ as she sat with Hermione Granger, war heroine.

Hermione Granger, who had a sparking ring on her finger and a pleasant smile on her face and a spine that didn't bend at all. (She has lovely posture, doesn't she.)

(Did they really burn the other daughter from the tapestry?)

(That's what I heard. I mean, can you blame their mother. A _Muggle-born,_ and back in those days.)

"Thank you so much for meeting with me," Narcissa said.

"It's really my pleasure," Hermione responded. Her own hands, fingers ink-stained, held onto their cup. "School starts again tomorrow and I'm enjoying the last day I can call my time my own."

"Yes," Narcissa said. "You pour yourself into everything you do."

"If a thing is doing, it's worth doing well," Hermione said. "Or so my mother taught me."

(Do you think Draco Malfoy is really engaged to her? Quite a coup if he is. What a way to rehabilitate their family.)

(Still, a Muggle-born.)

"Am I wrong in assuming you want to talk about the wedding?" Hermione asked.

(Did she say wedding?)

(I guess that answers that question.)

"No," Narcissa said. "Well, if you want to, of course. But I really asked you here to talk to you about a foundation I'm in the process of setting up." Narcissa and Hermione kept pleasant smiles on their faces as Narcissa explained her intention to set up a fund that would provide the means for students from 'less affluent families' to take the upper level courses. Hermione agreed that many of the N.E.W.T. classes had supply requirements that could be onerous if a student didn't have a vault filled with galleons. Apparition lessons could also be a burden on some families. As the conversation continued, Hermione waved over the server and asked for another pot of tea. She pulled her chair up, and taking out a sheet of parchment, began figuring what the cost would be. When you tallied up the total, she let out a low whistle.

(I bet they are doing wedding planning. Can you imagine what that wedding will look like? I bet they have real unicorns.)

(I heard they've been living together. Unicorns might not be the best idea.)

(You are just naughty.)

"You're right," Hermione said. "I know there's a fund for indigent students, but - "

"Some courses of study require more the basic equipment Hogwarts supplies to its neediest students," Narcissa said. "Someone gifted in Astronomy, for example, shouldn't have to use the cheapest student telescope for the N.E.W.T. classes. It would put them at a disadvantage."

Hermione made a noise that indicated her agreement. She remembered the quality of some of the things Hogwarts supplied. She'd had nightmares about that first flying lesson for years. They'd lasted until other demons pushed them out. "This is a good idea," she said. "But I'm teaching up there. Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest? Maybe Molly -"

"No." The word was sharp and carried and Narcissa had to moderate her tone. "I realize Bella was… she was not a well woman by the end."

"Well," Narcissa said, as Hermione tried and failed to contain her expression at that bit of understatement, "she was barking mad, but she was still my sister and I'll not be inviting her murderer onto a charity board."

Hermione acknowledged that seemed reasonable and murmured Molly could be difficult. She took an all-too-casual sip from her tea before she asked, "What about Andromeda?"

"I doubt she would be willing," Narcissa said.

Hermione reached for a cake. "I think she'd be a great asset." She took a bite out of it. "This is good. Shame we can't use this baker for the wedding."

Narcissa smiled. "We could."

"Good luck getting the elves to agree to that."

"You'll consider joining the board?"

"You'll consider asking Andromeda?" Hermione took another tiny bite and smiled.

"I cannot guarantee her response," Narcissa said.

(They look so tense.)

(Wedding planning is always hard. Remember when your mum locked herself in her room for three days because you wanted to wear red robes?)

(They were pretty.)

(Honestly.)


	274. Chapter 274 (The First Day Back)

Hermione had barely closed the door behind her into the blissful solitude of her office after teh first day of classes after the holiday when it opened again. She fought to keep the bitter thought that she hadn't even gotten to sit down from appearing on her face and instead tried to look welcoming and interested.

It helped that it was Azusa, looking very pretty in the scarf she'd given the girl before the holiday break. The girl asked how her holiday had gone and made polite comments on how much she'd enjoyed the day's class while Hermione gritted her teeth and waited for her to get to the point. When at last she did her question proved to be more difficult than that she was fasting but still trivial compared to life back at the Manor and Hermione let out a sigh of relief. She'd been afraid someone had been harassing the girl but it was nothing like that.

"And I'm just not sure how to _do_ that at school," Azusa concluded.

Hermione had to concede she had a point. While she admired the custom of doing charitable works, boarding school didn't really lend itself to helping the needy. Prayers, food, new clothes, even hugging people were all things Azusa could do with ease. A few questions confirmed that Sari and Andy, always happy to have any excuse to celebrate, had already coerced her into having a Eid-ul-Fitr feast in the Gryffindor common room that night for the whole of the House and as many other students as could be crammed into the space.

Hermione made a mental note to tell Minerva so patrols could make sure to miss students trailing home after curfew that day. Some things were a little more important than bedtimes.

At least, she thought so. Her years as a student, however, hadn't been, perhaps, the _most_ rule-abiding years. Still, she thought House unity might sway Minerva to seeing her point.

She drummed her fingers on her desk and thought about the best way the girl hovering in her office could do what she wanted at school. At last she said, "I think I should introduce you to Professor Malfoy's mother."

"Professor Malfoy isn't needy," Azusa objected.

Hermione managed to control her snort at the idea of Draco ever being in any sort of material want. "No," she said, "he isn't, and neither are his parents, but his mother is setting up a foundation to raise funds for school supplies for students who can't afford the costs of some of the classes here."

Azusa's face looked like she wasn't following Hermione at all.

"I know it's not quite as direct as giving canned goods to a soup kitchen," she said. "But if you wrote to her, I'm sure she'd have some ideas on how you could help."

"My mum would want me to donate," Asuza said. She seemed to be thinking. "And that would…but do you think Mrs. Malfoy would let me do more than that?"

Hermione studied the girl. She will if I have anything to say about it, she thought to herself. "I'm sure she'd be delighted to have an interested student involved in her charitable work," was all she said. "You would bring a perspective on what your fellows need that adults would lack."

At last, after more back and forth about whether making a donation to a foundation _counted_ , a debate Hermione was wholly unable to participate in other than suggesting over and over again that Azusa should really just ask her mother, the girl hoisted her bag back onto her shoulder, told Hermione she was just the best teacher _ever_ and that she'd go back to her room and write to Mrs. Malfoy right away, and left.

Hermione folded her arms down as a pillow and rested her head on her desk. She could just sleep here. It would be fine. If she Flooed home she might end up in someplace terribly wrong because she yawned while calling out the name and, truly, her desk was very comfortable.

"Already wiped out?"

She hadn't even heard the door opening, but there Draco was, playing with a Snitch, his hair rather appealing disheveled after what she could only assume was an afternoon spent on brooms with students. He looked energized and happy. "You stole my life force," she muttered. "Vampire. Thief."

"I think that was the teaching," he said.

She raised her head, looked at him, then collapsed back down. "I'm fine," she said. "Just fine."

Draco rolled his eyes and began putting her things into her bag. When they fell down into the vast recesses of her Undetectable Extension charm, he sighed. "I really don't know how you find anything in there," he said.

"Accio," she said and he laughed.

"Of course," he said. He held out his hand. "Shall I take you home and take care of you or just let you drool all over that parchment?"

She pulled herself to her feet and took the proffered hand. "Love you," she said.

His fingers tightened on hers. "I love you, too," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy day to the loveliest readers in all the world._**


	275. Chapter 275 (Blaise is Shallow)

Blaise had his head hovering over one breast, a hand cupped under the other one, and Susan had been thinking that his time spent with all those models hadn't been wasted, when he murmured, "You are so beautiful."

She stiffened and pulled away from him and he paused, his brain registering that he'd somehow said something wrong but unable to figure out what it was. She explained, her voice clipped and trying to stay level, "I know I'm not pretty, especially compared to... you don't need to lie to me. I'd prefer it if you didn't."

Blaise sat up and looked at her face, his eyes skimming from the tightened jaw to the narrowed lips to the way she knew she was blinking too quickly in an attempt to stave off tears, and he very slowly put her words together. He still didn't seem to quite follow her, however, because he said, "You are."

She shook her head. "I've seen... I know the girls you... this is the first time someone has been interested in me because of more than my…." What she meant was how easy she'd been, and, by the end of that eighth year at Hogwarts, how very skilled. She suspected she had skills borne of long practice that professionals would envy. It was nice to be wanted for her brains and her personality rather than how good her blow jobs were. "You don't have to lie and pretend it's about my looks." She could feel her smile quiver a bit as she added, "It's kind of nice to be appreciated for... more."

Blaise pushed himself away from her and, suddenly cold, she snatched up the shirt she'd cast aside earlier and pulled it back over her head, covering herself. She hunched down into the fabric as he just stared at her. At last he said, "But you're so symmetrical."

"I... what?" she asked him, sure she'd misheard. Symmetrical?

"And your ratios are," he paused and looked from her recently covered breasts to her hips and then back to her face. "They're perfect. I'm sure if we took measurements you'd be about as near the ideal ratio as humans can come."

Susan could feel a headache starting right behind her eyes and she rubbed at the bridge of her nose in an attempt to fight it off. "My MEASUREMENTS?" she asked.

"Well, yes," Blaise said. He seemed flabbergasted to have to explain this. "If you do a study of what human beings consider beautiful it generally has to do with symmetry and ratios. They've done research using old paintings and for hundreds and hundreds of years women considered beautiful all have pretty much the same ratio of... " He stopped talking and made an hourglass shape with his hands.

The headache settled into its new home and began unpacking. "Blaise," Susan began, but he cut her off.

"Do you really see yourself as not pretty?" he asked.

"Well, yes," she said. "You dated - "

"Women who made a _living_ being pretty," he said. He sounded impatient. "Do you have any idea how boring models are?"

"Well, I did figure you were interested in me for my... accomplishments and not my - "

"Fucking Merlin," Blaise swore. She was long used to his vocabulary and didn't even react other than to think rather gloomily about the professionally pretty women he'd had before her. "You really do think you aren't..." He stopped and swore again, and this time the stream of invective was so creative it interrupted her stream of depressed musing on how fat she was compared to all those girls.

"I've totally fucked this up," he said once he'd run out of other words. "You dress like you do because you're trying to hide, don't you?"

Susan didn't bother to answer that. It wasn't as if she even _knew_ how to dress the way those girls in his past did, and Circe knew their clothes wouldn't fit her, but in essence he was right.

"Do you want to model?" he asked her. She blinked at him a few times. That seemed like an idiotic question, and rather random. She didn't, not really. It sounded hideously dull, but even if she had wanted to it wasn't as if that type of career was open to her. "Because if you do," he went on, "I can introduce you to some agents who would fight over you. There would be actual face scratching from their pointed, lacquered, magically strengthened nails, because you have almost perfect features and are in... your ratios," he said again.

Susan felt a tiny giggle pushing its way up from her gut. It danced about in her throat and didn't quite come out. It was the word ratio. He'd used it so many times it had become funny.

"You'd have to wear heels," he said. "And dress better. But you have the right ratios so if you wanted to - "

"If heels are involved, I'm out," she said.

"Susan." He took a deep breath. "You are... I am a shallow arsehole. I really am. You are brilliant and brave and I am in awe of just how _good_ you are. But you're also hot as fuck and I'm enough of a...a... an arsehole that I wouldn't be... I'm not _overlooking_ that you're plain because you're so incredible in other ways. You are... you're perfect."

"My ratios," she said.

"And your symmetry," he agreed. He looked relieved she finally understood and for the very first time it occurred to Susan he wasn't just being nice.

"My symmetry," she repeated. At his nod the giggle she'd managed to contain finally snuck out. "Blaise Zabini," she said, "You have no idea how to give a girl a compliment. My _ratios_."

"You have a great arse," he said. "It's all..." He held his hands out as if cupping the arse in question between them. "And your tits. Merlin, woman, they're the best thing ever. You smuggle this treasure under those hideous jumpers. If you had any idea how to dress, men would probably follow you like dogs on the street."

Susan wasn't sure how she could still be laughing over the word ratios and his fixation on symmetry and be crying at the same time. The tears undid Blaise and he sat there, on her bed, his hands still held out in front of his as though he were groping her, and stared at the water trickling out of her eyes. "Susan?" he asked, the word hesitant. "Have I... I didn't mean to suggest you were... it's just, how can you not see yourself as beautiful?"

"I'm fat," she said.

He made a rude noise. "You are zaftig. You are curvaceous. You are... you don't have sharp, bony bits that jab into me." At her look he added hastily, "I mean, those women are pretty too. All very symmetrical. They just aren't to my taste the same way your... I am really fucking shallow, Susan."

She decided maybe his shallowness wasn't the worst thing ever.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Blaise. He's shallow._**


	276. Chapter 276 (A Meeting with Molly)

Hermione passed the essay over to Molly who took it with stiff precision and set it on the table in front of her in the cafe. Hermione had wanted neutral ground for this meeting; the Burrow was filled with too many years of being beloved and welcomed, or so she'd thought at the time.

Tracey Davis, unlike her, was astute enough to know her acceptance was conditional. Be Ron's and have a place at Molly's table. Decide you'd rather not and lose it.

"Draco had a governess," Hermione began. Molly sniffed, her usual opinion about the wealthy scions Hermione had surrounded herself with made clear. Hermione barreled on anyway. "And I understand you taught everyone at home."

"Magical children don't fare well in Muggle primary schools," Molly said, still reading. Hermione resisted the urge to tell her she'd done just fine herself, thank you very much, and she hadn't even had parents who understood what was going on to help her navigate the fallout of accidental magic. Harry had managed. She was sure little Dennis Creevy and his camera had managed. All the Muggle-borns managed. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking and just let Molly set the essay down, take a sip from her tea, and sigh. "It's easier to remain separate than to try to mix the cultures."

"Which results in some children being woefully unprepared for Hogwarts," Hermione said. "They know what Quidditch is, and are used to magic being a daily part of their lives, but they can barely read and write." She took a deep breath. "Draco suggested I talk to you about it since none of your children had that problem."

"I should think not," Molly said. "I had a set plan I used. No flying until all the work was done. Reading and writing and maths and, for Ginny, some basic housekeeping."

Hermione tried to imagine Ginny's fury at the extra subject being added just for her and hid her grin. She was sure Ginny had even less interest in the best way to keep whites white than she did, and if she knew how to turn one chicken into three meals, well, George had probably also picked that up just by watching. The only one of the women in Recovery Group who'd given a damn about traditionally feminine pursuits had been Pansy; Hermione wondered if Molly knew the daughter-in-law she'd so vocally objected to was a brilliant cook who knew more housekeeping charms than the average three witches combined just because of all the time she'd spent hiding from her own mother in the kitchens with the elves. Probably not. Some day Pansy would enjoy puncturing her mother-in-law's belief she was nothing but a pampered aristocrat and Hermione looked forward to hearing about it afterward.

"Many parents don't seem to be quite so organized," Hermione said.

Molly sniffed again. "With seven children you have to be organized."

"I'm sure," Hermione said. "You were so organized with your own, and you put together such a comprehensive curriculum for Defense Against the Dark Arts, I wondered if you'd be interested in developing a recommended course of study for primary homeschoolers."

"Helping you?" Molly's tone made her opinion of being Hermione's assistant clear and Hermione swallowed the urge to tell the woman she'd sooner eat glass.

"No, I'm not really qualified to do that," Hermione said. "I can see that the problem exists, but you've already thought about what magical children need to prepare them for Hogwarts. I've talked to Percy and he thinks he can work the Ministry so funding is put in place for a short-term consulting position on education for the Ministry. Basically, you'd go in and set up recommendations and develop an optional curriculum with books and goals and - "

"A job?" Molly asked.

"Well, Percy would have to pull some strings," Hermione said, "but he's good at that and there really is a need. Some of these kids... it's painful."

"I'll think about it," Molly said.

Hermione took a sip from her own tea and asked idle questions about the woman's travels and praised Percy and Ron. She'd spent enough time with the Slytherins to know Molly would do it. One problem, passed off to someone else. Now if only she could unload some of her grading so she'd have time to do the research she wanted.


	277. Chapter 277 (Punishing Politicians)

Draco looked both guilty and gleeful when Hermione stuck her head into the library. She knew the look of mean satisfaction all too well as she'd seen it directed at her far too often when they had been children. "Dare I ask?" she said as she crossed the room and picked up one of the many sheets of parchment spread across the table.

She skimmed the letter, a piece of private correspondence between a current member of the Wizengamot and Lucius Malfoy, and made a face of her own. The writer wished to reassure the honored Lucius that he could count on his support when the Dark Lord moved to take over the Ministry, and, also, would it be possible for the most generous and delightful Lord Malfoy to arrange a photographic session for himself and their honored and valued resurrected leader?

"Lord Malfoy?" she asked.

"Bit of a sycophant," Draco agreed.

"Just a bit," Hermione said. She set the despicable letter down and picked up a photograph. She assumed it was the writer who stood, beaming, next to a rather annoyed looking Voldemort. She found that Voldemort had done photo ops with eager members of the Ministry strangely hilarious. She supposed that taking over an extant government couldn't be all maniacal laughter and torture sessions, it had to also include the odd moment of retaining the loyalty of underhanded politicians. The very, very odd moment. "Friend of yours?" she asked.

Draco snorted. "He told me he'd no sooner support a Death Eater lover like Susan for a seat in the Wizengamot than he'd eat his own leg."

Hermione waved the photograph through the air.

"Quite," Draco said, "though he probably doesn't realize Yaxley kept duplicates of every one of those photographs, or that my father didn't burn everything straightaway after the Battle of Hogwarts."

Hermione set the photograph down and picked up what turned out to be another letter to Lucius, this one detailing how the writer had discovered a madam in Knockturn Alley who didn't ask pesky questions about the ages of her girls, if Lucius knew what he meant. They were mostly Mudbloods, of course, but the price was certainly right. Hermione set the letter down as quickly as she could and wiped her hands on her trousers; just having touched the sheet of parchment made her feel dirty. "Did your father…?" she began to ask.

Draco shook his head. "You've met my mother," he said. He didn't need to expand on that. Narcissa would no more tolerate a husband who frequented brothels that specialized in underage girls than she would a dictator who put her son at risk.

"I take it you're sending all this lot to the ever-scrupulous Rita Skeeter?" Hermione asked.

"Do you think they'll call a special session to expel him from their midst?" Draco asked. "Character unbecoming and all that?"

"Oh," Hermione said, her eye lingering on the photograph, "I hope so."

The Wizengamot did not, but only because their errant member resigned before they could. The article was a sensation and the reproduction of the photograph almost caused a riot. People were afraid, at first glimpse, that the bogeyman had returned. Once they discovered that a member of their government had posed for a personal photograph with the monster they feared most, outrage ran wild. His wife packed her bags and decamped to her mother's within an hour of reading article. Within two hours she'd given a private, weepy interview to Rita Skeeter, declaring she'd had no idea and felt she'd been living a lie her whole adult life.

Betrayed wives sold papers, and Rita Skeeter was surely pleased with her two-for-one journalistic coups.

Hermione had trouble controlling her smirk as she sat with the Nott Manor crew after dinner the day the article came out. They'd passed copies of The Daily Prophet back and forth and tsked at the political downfall chronicled therein.

"How goes the nose counting?" Hermione asked.

"Better today than yesterday," Draco said. They shared a pleased look. "Several hold outs dropped me an owl to let me know they've finally had time to look over Susan's qualifications and that, though she is young, she seems very well suited for politics and they look forward to voting for her."

"Fancy that," Theodore said. "Do you have proof of hookers or embarrassing political support issues in their past?"

"Some of each," Draco said. "Some embezzlement and bribe taking as well."

"Taking bribes from whom?" Percy asked. The wry irony in his tone suggested he knew the answer.

Draco smiled. "Unfortunately," he said, "the documents don't make that clear."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - A little more fun, I hope, than the last chapter. We are so close to the end I can almost taste it._**


	278. Chapter 278 (Valentines Day: 1 of 10)

Molly Weasley had been making a series of shocked sounds as she looked over the most recent edition of _The Daily Prophet_. Ron had been, by and large, ignoring her. He and George had both come home for the weekly Sunday dinner and now had settled down over a game of chess. "Anything interesting, mum?" George asked as he moved a pawn. "Scandal in the recipe section, maybe?"

Molly threw a look his way that would have shut him up had he caught it. His head was down over the board, however, and so her scathing expression went unappreciated. Instead he added, "New Death Eater scandal at Hogwarts?"

Molly sniffed at that. She was still prone to grumbling that Minerva had lost her mind letting a former Death Eater teach the innocent children, along with mutterings about what was the world coming to and in her day Dumbledore would never have let that happen, but she had, in truth, resigned herself not only to Draco Malfoy's continued employment at Hogwarts but his growing popularity among the students. That she had an entire table covered with the primary curriculum she was working on for the Ministry probably had something to do with her decreased interest in purifying the sacred halls of her alma mater.

"There's a Death Eater scandal," Molly said to George, "but not at Hogwarts."

"One of the bastards up in Azkaban die?" Ron asked. Thoros Nott's release and subsequent death had spurred some investigative reporting into why it was a prisoner couldn't get medical treatment at prison and, though the reporter had clearly meant only to scold Susan Bones for her excessive charity in getting the man released, the story of conditions at the prison had proved much more interesting. Conditions were, in a word, bad. Politicians expressed shock and dismay and housewives tsked and if changes up in the North Sea were incremental and slow, they did happen. If another hated Death Eater had died due to lack of basic care, political heads might roll. You weren't supposed to starve people to death or let them wither in cages, not even if they were vile human beings the world would be better off without.

"No," Molly said. She stood up and dropped the paper in front of Ron and George. They both had a quickly controlled visceral reaction to the photograph of Voldemort.

"Seems a bit irresponsible, putting that on the front page," Ron said after he sucked in his breath. "Who's the stiff next to our favorite monster?"

"Until recently, he was a member of the Wizengamot," Molly said.

George picked up the paper, put his thumb over Voldemort's head, and read the article. He let out a low whistle when he got to the details of the man's correspondence with Lucius Malfoy. "You'd think these people would have been smart enough not to write things like that down," he said. He passed the paper over to Ron who skimmed the article.

"You don't suppose Malfoy…?" Ron began when he got to the end, but George snorted and that snort stopped him.

"You've met sniffy-face ferret-mum," George said. "You think she'd let old Lucius live if he liked to go to places like that?"

It was Ron's turn to snort. "Kept the letter though, didn't he?" He folded the paper so the photograph didn't show and set it down. "Malfoys do like their blackmail material."

"Good record keeping can be your friend," George said. He leaned back in his chair. "You plan to move any time soon?"

Ron used a bishop to take the pawn George had moved. "Wonder how Susan Bones is doing?" he said.

George glanced over at the folded paper. "Better, I suspect." Ron let out a braying laugh and the pair of brothers passed looks of mutual understanding back and forth.

Molly changed the subject. "Where do you plan to take those nice girls of yours out tomorrow?" she asked.

"Angelina wants to go to a Quidditch match," George said. He wrinkled his nose at the board and moved his queen a few spaces. "So that's what we're doing."

Ron shrugged. "Tracey said she doesn't care."

"Which means she absolutely cares," George said.

"Right?" Ron said. He sounded annoyed at the inscrutable ways of women but he'd bungled Lavender in school and Hermione after the end of the war and he'd become accustomed to the idea that he might need to try a little harder if he wanted this one to work out. And he did want it to work out. "So Harry used his name to get us reservations at some swank new place and I got her a necklace."

"Nice," said George. "Very nice."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Welcome to Valentine's Day in April. If there is a particular pairing you'd like to see revisited on this most romantic of April holidays (ahem) be sure to mention it._**


	279. Chapter 279 (Valentines Day: 2 of 10)

Pansy opened the note the morning owl had brought and snarled. Before she could begin ripping it to shreds, Charlie plucked it out of her hands and skimmed it. "Your mother still not a fan?" he half-asked, half-said. Posy Parkinson had written suggesting that Pansy could come back to civilization for a visit. _You looked so nice at Christmas_ , her mother had said. _You could just be eccentric, with that husband, and still be on every charity council that matters. Eccentricity must be in because everyone fawns over that Granger woman and she's a disaster and some girl named Susan Bones in your year, who has terrible clothes and always wears flats, is going to be on the Wizengamot before long. You could be on the Wizengamot. You've always had much better fashion sense than that Bones woman._

The letter went on for quite a bit longer. Charlie was laughing by the end. "She really has no idea who you are, does she?" he asked as he tossed the parchment into the fire and pulled Pansy, who'd grown pale and quiet, into an embrace. "Don't let her bother you."

"I don't deserve you," Pansy said. Charlie tightened his hold on her and began to murmur that of course she did but Pansy cut him off. "My mother thinks it about you, and we both know it's what your mother thinks about me. She thinks I'm not good enough for you."

Charlie rested his cheek on her dark hair and sighed. It was true, of course. Molly Weasley had become polite but she was still cold. They'd spent one hour at the Burrow over Christmas just to make an appearance and open gifts of jumpers before going back to their hotel. "In all fairness," he said, "My mother doesn't think anyone is good enough for her brood."

"Harry Potter," Pansy said.

"You've got me there," he said. "Rise from the killing curse twice and defeat a Dark Lord and then she'll make an exception, especially if she's known you since you were an abused waif. But the rest of you? No. Fleur?"

"Fleur's lovely," Pansy said. She'd been subjected to several long, rapturous discussions of exactly how lovely Fleur was during a prolonged attempt at a kneazle mating session she and Millie had finally just given up on. The tortiseshell queen had been trying to beat up the male kneazles they'd brought in to breed her, assuming by 'trying to beat up' you meant, 'almost murdering and leaving cowering in a corner.' It had been a long afternoon filled with kneazle howling and Millie's discourse on just how very, very lovely Fleur was.

"She is," Charlie agreed, "She's lovely and brave, and noble, and she's still not good enough for my mum. Theodore? I think her mouth still tightens up whenever anyone mentions his name for all she's trying to accept the situation."

"Theodore's never hurt a soul," Pansy said, a brief flare of outrage on his behalf pulling her out of her doldrums.

"Point is, lovely wife of mine, Bill doesn't care, and Percy doesn't care, and I don't care, and I'm pretty sure Ginny wishes Mum would stop thinking the sun rises and sets on Harry."

"I just - "

"And if anyone's lucky in this room, it's me."

Pansy rolled her eyes as she stepped back and looked Charlie Weasley over. He was still naked from their early morning bout of 'good ways to say hello', and his hair fell down over one eye despite the way he kept pushing it back. Light from one window danced over muscles built over years of working with dragons and caught on scars from working with those same beasts. "I'm pretty lucky," she said. "You just got the bitch of Slytherin."

He took a finger and ran it along her arm as she stood there, shivering in the cool air of their small cottage. "I got the prettiest girl I've ever seen, who's fearless and has armor no one can pierce, who can't be broken, and who loves animals as much as I do. And the cooking? Dear Merlin, the cooking. I think I win."

She let him pull her back into his arms. "I just hate Valentine's Day," she muttered. "All that pressure in school to be happy and dating and popular just… it was the worst day ever."

"Even now?" he asked. She shrugged, the movement of her shoulders the kind of wordless, tactile feedback he'd long ago learned to read in dragons. He kissed the side of her hair, then her temple, then her mouth, all gently, and said, "We could make it better."

"You think I'm - "

"I think I'm lucky enough that you trust me enough to let me see you vulnerable," Charlie said. "And you aren't pathetic, or weak, or whatever it was you were about to say." He kissed her again. "About that making it a better day?"

Pansy summoned a ghost of her usual cocky smile. "How do you plan to do that?"

He scooped her up and dumped her back on their bed. "With my tongue, of course," he said. She began to laugh. "I mean, you didn't think I was going to make a paper Valentine, did you? Or make you get dressed up and go out to a dull meal with champagne you'd turn your cute little nose up at?"

"Paper's flammable," she said. "Plus, the kneazles sometimes pee on it. And no place up here has decent vintages."

Charlie didn't bother to respond because he was already using his tongue for other things.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you, lovely readers, for being the sweetest people in fandom. Your kind comments have powered this monster and I cannot thank you enough._**


	280. Chapter 280 (Valentine's Day: 3 of 10)

_Your Eyes are Green As Mold_

 _Your Hair is Black and Dirt_

 _By Merlin, but you're old_

 _Let's go fuck in a yurt._

Harry looked up from the unsigned Valentine the owl had delivered and eyed Ginny. She sat across him at the breakfast table, framed by the table of miniature dirigible plums behind her that were Kreacher's current gardening project. A cup of tea was at her hand, some toast on a plate, and the Quidditch section of _The Daily Prophet_ held in front of her. "A yurt?" he asked. "Where would we find a yurt? I'm not even sure what a yurt _is._ "

She lowered the paper and the look she gave him was utterly perplexed. "Harry? What are you talking about?"

He looked back at the Valentine in his hand. It had been made out of paper someone had coloured pink. There were little red hearts in the margins and the writing had been disguised to look at loopy and girlish as possible. Still, he'd assumed it had been from Ginny, a nod back to the one she'd sent him as a girl with a crush. Who else would send him a Valentine. He passed it across the table to her and she read it and started to snicker.

"I like the idea well enough," she said, "though I remain a bit fuzzy on where we'd get a yurt. It's not from me, though. You have a fan somewhere."

Harry shuddered. He had lots of fans. He had sane, thoughtful fans and he had lunatic fans. He had so many fans there was a spell on the townhouse at Grimmauld Place that only permitted owls from known senders to get through. The possibility one of his fans had found a way around the security charm was terrifying.

Of course, Ginny could be lying. Or it could be from someone else, someone who already had owl access. He yelled for Kreacher, and when the elf arrived, pruning sheers in one hand, he asked if he had, by chance, seen the owl that had brought the mail. It hadn't been an especially large owl, had it. Kreacher, however, had not seen the mail delivered and, by the expression on his glowering face, was contemplating the possibility that Harry Potter had, at long last, gone round the bend and he might have to stop nurturing his seedlings to nurture a stupid person.

As Harry drummed his fingers on the table trying to figure out exactly how one went about asking a certain someone whether he had sent a very bad bit of doggerel with a most improper suggestion, the large owl he'd been thinking of arrived and dropped off another package. Harry sighed at Malfoy's eagle owl but grabbed an owl treat for the beast before it could decide to take a bite out of his hand instead. When the bird flew off and he opened the package, he began to swear. It was a Muggle book about yurts. Malfoy had stuck a sheet of parchment inside the front cover that read, "Heard you might have an interest in alternative architecture."

"That…that rotten _bastard,_ " Harry finally settled down to saying. "He sends me a _valentine_? With a… I should tell him off. I should - "

"You could just tell him you're flattered he likes your eyes so much, but he isn't your type?" Ginny suggested, rather obviously holding back a giggle as she flipped through the book Draco had sent.

" _Or_ I could play along," Harry said. He began to sound excited and he accioed a sheet of parchment and began drafting note back. Ginny opened her mouth as if to say this seemed like a very bad idea and that he might paint himself into a corner from which it would be tricky to extricate himself, but then she took a sip of her tea instead and picked the paper back up.

"Whatever amuses you," she said.

 _Your skin is like snow_

 _All white and without glow_

 _I bet you give a mean job blow._

Harry read it out loud to Ginny who lowered the paper just enough to look at him over the top edge. "Keep your day job," was all she advised.

Harry sent the missive off, rubbed his hands together, and snickered before he said, "So… I don't have a yurt to hand, but maybe we could go back upstairs and you could admire my moldy eyes?"

"I prefer to think of them as fresh pickled toad," she said, "and I'm not getting a yurt, but the bed will do."

"Or the - "

"No." At his look she said, "last time we tried to get creative in a location it turned out Kreacher had a tiny pot of Devil's Snare under the table and it was bad, remember?"

Harry remembered and he agreed the bed was fine.

It was more than fine.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Happy Hinny Drarry Valentine's Day._**


	281. Chapter 281 (Valentine's Day: 4 of 10)

Andy knocked at the Slytherin common room. When he'd found out that before the war the location had been a secret he'd thought Hermione and Pansy were lying to him, but they really hadn't been. Once upon a time people had actually kept the location of their dormitories secret. He'd asked how that worked when they'd wanted to study with one another, or just hang out because they were friends, and Pansy and Hermione had given one another one of those confusing looks and at last Hermione had said, "People didn't have friends in other Houses when we were at Hogwarts."

Andy had squinted at her. His whole first year had been hell, but everyone had worked together to survive. "None?" he'd asked.

"None," Pansy had confirmed. Hermione had said something about how Harry had dated Cho Chang and they'd gotten into an argument about whether cross-House dating counted as friends and he'd slipped away because when the pair of them went at it, they sometimes yelled.

He knocked on the stone wall again and the door slid open and an annoyed looking older student glowered down at him.

"Is Trista around?" Andy asked. He hoped the package he had in his hand wasn't too obvious and pathetic.

"Trista!" the older girl yelled back into the Slytherin common room. "Your Gryffindor is here again." She looked at Andy and sighed. "Do you want to wait inside or should I just send her out to you?"

Before he could speak, however, Trista pushed her way past her older Housemate and squealed. "Andy!"

"I'll see you later, then," the girl said. "Just teach him the passwords, would you? The rest of us aren't butlers sitting around waiting to let your various boyfriends in." She looked at Andy. "This week it's emperor."

"Thanks," he said, but she'd already slammed the door and it had disappeared into the stone wall and he was left standing in the dungeons with the red-wrapped package in his hand. He thrust it out toward Trista. "Happy Valentine's Day," he said.

She took it. "How did you?" she started to ask. She knew he hadn't gone on the last Hogsmeade's trip. He hardly ever went. This year it was still easy because he could stay behind with friends not old enough to go. Next year, when Trista and Crina and the lot could all go they'd insist he join them and he'd have to admit he didn't have any spending money. Theodore had dumped 50 galleons in his bag on the way back from the Christmas holiday and told him not to worry about it, but he felt wrong taking advantage.

It wasn't like he was Theodore's kid. He wasn't even the man's little brother or cousin or anything.

"Blaise - he's one of the people who live at my… with my… at Theodore's got it for me so I could give it to you and owled it." Blaise hadn't asked. An owl with a note reading, _For eyeliner girl. Thanks for helping me spend my arsehole stepfather's money on girls. Use contraceptive charms. See you next holiday._ had just arrived. Andy had almost spit out his pumpkin juice when he saw the admonition to use contraception. "Merlin," he said, and almost snatched the package back as he remembered the note. "I hope it's nothing too weird. Blaise is…he can be weird."

"Let's find out," Trista said. When she tore the paper off, Andy breathed out a sigh of relief. All the box contained was two chocolate frogs. Trista handed one back to him and they opened the frog packages with care. One tried to jump away but Trista laughed, took a bite out of one foot, and the magical candy settled down. She took another bite, then looked up at Andy in the stone corridor. She seemed suddenly shy, and scuffed the toe of her shoe against the floor and he could see the way she was biting the inside of her cheek. "Thank you," she said. "You didn't have to think of me."

"I wanted to," Andy muttered, looking down at his own shoes where they peeked out of the hem of his school robes. Trista darted in and pecked him on the cheek, then flew back and flushed and fluttered a bit. He felt something warm settle in the pit of his stomach and bit the inside of his own cheek. "Happy Valentine's Day, he said again, before he scooted in himself and planted a kiss on the side of her face.

"So… are we boyfriend and girlfriend?" Trista asked as they walked down the corridor together.

"Do you want to be?" Andy asked. He didn't want to say yes if she didn't want him to.

"If you do?" she replied, the words an obvious question.

He took her hand in his. "Then we are," he decided. He hoped she didn't notice how sweaty his hand was.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - More fluffs!_**


	282. Chapter 282 (Valentine's Day: 5 of 10)

Padma set Lucius Malfoy's folder down and looked up at the aristocratic man. He sat in a comfortable but utilitarian armchair she'd added to her office just for him. "I know what the tests say," she said, "but how do you feel?"

One of the things she liked about working with Lucius was that he gave questions serious and measured consideration instead of just telling her he was fine. He did that now. He leaned on his cane and thought for at least a full minute before he said, "I am never going to be who I was at seventeen again, but the good days outnumber the bad ones."

Padma spared a thought for what Lucius Malfoy had probably been like at seventeen or eighteen. He would have been a fresh-faced Hogwarts graduate, as arrogant and self-sure as Draco at his worst, on fire with Voldemort's cause. She couldn't help but think this was an improvement. All she said, however, was, "Good days are what we're working toward. Do you have a sense of the ratio of good to bad?"

Lucius pursed his lips and she waited for him to reply. "Maybe two to one," he said. "Maybe three."

"And what was it when we started work?"

"All bad," he said.

Padma nodded. "Well," she said, "the good news is that you've made excellent progress, but I'm afraid I've run out of things to offer you. This may be as much as we can do."

She could tell this information was not a surprise to him and, while he might have hoped she had some other Muggle trick up her sleeve, that she didn't was merely disappointing rather than crushing. "So this is it," he said. "I really cannot thank you enough, Miss Patil. You have given my life back to me with your impressive skill and willingness to incorporate, how shall I phrase it? Unorthodox - "

"Muggle," she said rather dryly. Trust Lucius Malfoy to have trouble saying Muggle even now.

"Quite," he said. "Though if you'll accept a bit of advice, I'd gloss over that as you expand your patient circle out of these trials." He leaned further forward on his cane as though by moving closer to her he could add emphasis to what he was about to say. Padma shifted her weight so she sat on the edge of her desk and watched him. He was a more polished version of Draco and she could see the future of her friend under all that smooth gloss. He would be formidable. "Do you have a distributor yet for your developments?"

"I do not," she said. She was tempted to tell him medical advances belonged to everyone, that you could no more brand and sell pain relief than you could air, but certainty if she didn't lock her ideas down the Ministry would abscond with them kept her mouth sealed.

"I would be interested in helping you with that," he said.

Padma just bet he would.

"You will be a very rich woman," he continued. "Thanks to you, I will dance with my wife at my son's wedding, assuming the planning of the event doesn't kill me first, and I would like to ensure your work reaches as many people as possible."

"We are still in the trial stage," she said, flustered at the how quickly he jumped from limited trials to wealth before she switched back to the much more comfortable clinician mode. "Is wedding planning putting a strain on you? We could – "

"It's a delightful strain," Lucius said. "Miss Granger has given Narcissa carte blanche to do as she pleases with the reception and my wife is in heaven with swatches and cake samples and interviews with portrait artists. I am only required to smile and say everything is perfection at appropriate intervals."

Padma blinked a few times. "Hermione?" she asked, not quite sure how to continue that question.

"I believe she said she'd rather sit through a three-hour faculty meeting with Binns than have to weigh the merits of assorted wedding favors."

Padma could believe that. She felt the same way, though she made a mental note to get enough henna to do mehendi on Hermione's arms for the big day. She'd already started designing entwined peacocks and otters in her head and wasn't paying full attention and so had to ask Lucius Malfoy to repeat his question.

"Will we be expecting a similar announcement from you soon?"

"No." Padma's smile took on the strained courtesy she forced to her face whenever her mother asked the same question. Develop new techniques merging Muggle and wizarding medical knowledge to alleviate, or at least temper, chronic pain and inflammation all while doing your Healing internship at the same time and all people cared about was when were you going to get married. "I'm afraid I'm married to my research," she added, not sure why she felt the need to sound apologetic.

"Well, the loss to one man is a gain for all of us," Lucius said with more gallantry than her parents could manage. He stood and held a hand out to her. "I cannot thank you enough for your efforts on my behalf. I'll send over some papers with an outline of my proposal for Malfoy Holdings investment in Patil Industries."

"There is no Patil Industries," she protested, dazed and flustered again at that vision.

Lucius shook her hand and smiled. "There will be, Miss Patil. There will be."

After he had left she picked up his file and kissed it. Some girls got chocolates or lingerie or jewellery for Valentine's Day. She, apparently, got funding for a company and the promise of a distribution channel for her work. "I think I'll go out and have a slice of cake to celebrate," she said to herself.

She'd get extra frosting, she decided as she turned off the lights, and ice cream on the side. It wasn't every day you got your own company and such a day definitely rated extra frosting.

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - More Valentine's fluffs._**


	283. Chapter 283 (Valentine's Day: 6 of 10)

Susan shook her head. "There is no way," she protested, but he could tell her fingers itched to put it on and see. "I'd look ridiculous."

"You'll look hot," Blaise countered. He pulled her up against him and reveled, as he always did, in how glorious she was. One of his hands still held the bag with the bit of frothy nothing he'd gone all the way to Paris to pick up, but he ran the other over her perfect arse in an appreciation that hovered between lewd and worshipful. Merlin, he loved her arse. He had thoughts about her arse that were probably very, very bad but he didn't care.

"I've got rolls," she said.

"I know," he said. He let her go and pulled out the red and pink lingerie. "And this will frame them for me." He put on his best wheedling voice. "Susan, I'm very shallow and very visual and seeing you dressed up for sex would do things to me you can only benefit from."

She took the silk and lace from his hand. "You're _sure_?" she asked. He made the best desperate noise he could and that pulled a smile to her lips. "You are incorrigible," she said. "But I'm not wearing heels with it."

"Would I ask you to do that?" he said, spreading his hands as if totally innocent.

"Yes," she said. He laughed and nudged the box with the red satin heels out of sight. She followed the motion and her eyes narrowed. "You got heels too, didn't you?"

"You have beautiful feet," he said. "And it's not like you'd be standing in them for long. Just for as long as it takes you to get from the bathroom to the bed. They'll be up around your ears in no time."

"Incorrigible," she said again, followed by, "Give them to me."

She retreated into the bath off her room and he waited, erection straining against his trousers at just the _thought_ of her in the bra and knickers and, oh fucking Merlin, would she wear the garters and stockings too? He'd added them to the purchase as a last minute addition on the advice of a sales girl who'd looked at the bra with raw envy. "Wish I had the figure to wear that," she'd said.

He heard the click of the door opening and looked up. If he'd been fourteen he would have come in his pants right then and there. "Fuck," he breathed out. She stood, almost tentatively, in the doorway. The red lace brassiere cupped her glorious breasts and the matching knickers made his palms sweat. She'd tied them over her hips and the little bows begged to be undone with his teeth. And, oh sweet mother of Merlin, she had worn the garter belt and stockings and if he'd thought her legs looked good plain, the way the sheer, black silk highlighted every curve in her shape made him realize he'd never properly appreciated her before. And the shoes. Oh, someone help him, he'd finally gotten her into heels and they were doing things to his anatomy he wouldn't have thought possible.

"It's okay?" she asked.

"Do you think you could stand there long enough for me to… I know I said you'd just be in the shoes as long as it took to walk to the bed but…" He approached her and knelt down at her feet, hooked a thumb under the edge of the knickers and wet his lips with his tongue. "You look amazing," he said.

He pressed his mouth to the lace and breathed out. She made a tiny, mewling noise. "Can you stand?" he asked again, then licked at her over the fabric.

"I… I think I could manage," she got out before he went to work. He licked over the fabric until she had her hands at the back of his head and was pulling him against her with fervor that made him burn, then he reached over and tugged on the string and the knickers fell away and he began to taste her without the teasing barrier. She gasped and he wrapped his hands around that arse - _that arse! -_ and pressed his face into her until he could barely flick his tongue back and forth and around in the rhythm he knew she liked best, until she whimpered and keened and said his name over and over like a charm she never wanted to forget, until she shattered in his arms and he scooped her up and carried her to the bed.

He had, after all, told her she wouldn't need to stand in those shoes for long. He'd told her they'd end up around her ears.

And a gentleman should never go back on his word.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Valentine lingerie fluffs…_**


	284. Chapter 284 (Valentine's Day: 7 of 10)

Hermione sat in her office at Hogwarts and looked at the pile of paper valentines. She'd avoided Madam Puddifoots, and there hadn't been singing cupids, though Ginny had continued what would become a lifelong custom of writing doggerel and sending it to Harry. The day had, despite her avoidance of pink tea houses and cupids, however, still been mildly grating. Someone had taken it into her head that it would be a grand idea of students made their own paper cards and send them to one another and to teachers. She'd gotten several.

She looked over at Draco's pile. It was falling over. There was one from _Harry._ She hadn't even gotten a Valentine from Harry. She doubted _Ginny_ had gotten a Valentine from Harry.

"You're better at this than I am," she said.

He did that thing where he squinted at her and looked confused. "Teaching," she elaborated. "You connect with the students better than I do."

Draco took a moment to answer her and she could almost see him trying to arrange his words to be as inoffensive as possible. "You aren't exactly Binns," he said at last. "You're smart and you're dedicated and they look up to you and trust you and - "

She shook her head. "You're better," she said again.

"It isn't a contest," he said, and she could hear the frustration in his voice. "You - ""

"I don't even like it that much," she said. That made him fall silent and watch her. "I think next year you should do it alone."

"Teaching?" he asked.

She nodded and he took a deep breath. "You'd have more time to research," he said.

"You mother wants me to join a charity board," Hermione said. "I steered Azusa to her - "

"The fundraiser," Draco said with a nod.

"Right. I just… I feel like the classes and the grading is just this thing hanging over my head and I dread it. I can't find time to do the reading I want to do about how other cultures use wandless magic like its nothing. I can't find time to read for fun. And now your mother wants me to this thing… it's like there's nothing left for me." She looked back over as his pile of homemade valentines just as a pink heart slid down the pile, picking up enough momentum to make it all the way off the table and flutter to the floor. "Roses are read, Violents are Blue, Slytherins are Sweet, and We Love You," it read. Several long-wilted, transfigured rose petals had been affixed to the heart and they sagged in what might have been sympathy with her exhaustion.

She tipped her head to the side and read the card again. " _Violents_ are blue?" she asked him.

"At least they restricted themselves to only sticking on the roses and left the violence off," Draco said. He nudged the valentine with his foot. "They're cute but they can't spell. They do bring up one point I wonder if you'd like to explore."

"The rose petals, properly transfigured, shouldn't have wilted," she said, still studying the heart with its decorations.

He sighed and clutched at his heart. "I'm feeling rejected here, Hermione. Focus, for the love of Merlin. Forget about the roses and the spelling. Do you care to test whether Slytherins really are sweet, however?"

"You don't mind taking on the whole teaching thing without me?" she asked him, her mind still on teaching and the problem she'd been mulling over and over and over and finding no answer to.

Draco rolled his eyes. "You aren't the only one who can grade an essay, you know," he said. "And you can come in and guest lecture whenever you want." He reached over and tugged on her sleeve. "I want you to be happy, Hermione. We lived though hell, and I don't think it's too selfish to do what makes you happy after that."

She looked at her valentines. "I really want to do that research," she admitted. "And I just don't have time."

"Then quit," he said. At her uneasy look he added, "Take an extended sabbatical?"

"I could do that," she said.

"About that research," he said again.

"Into wandless magic?" she asked, and began to open her mouth to tell him some of the fascinating ways Romanian witches used magic to clean their homes but he pressed his lips to her before she could start.

"No, you idiot," he said after a kiss that cut off all potential discussion of the eradication of mites or how to keep your flour weevil free. "Whether I'm sweet."

She began to smile. "We should floo home," she said.

"Oh, come on," he said, his mouth at the base of her throat. "You've never ever thought about doing things here?" he murmured as he trailed a line of kisses along her skin to where it disappeared into her robes. Because I would dearly love to bend you over this desk where we are always so responsible and so mature and so adult and do very, very naughty things to you."

Hermione looked up at the door just as Draco waved his wand. "Already locked," he said.

She hitched herself up so she sat on the desk. "So, Professor," she said. "Tell me more about this research you want to do." She licked her lips. "Tell me in as much detail as you can."

"You do like almost excessive details in your research," he said as he began to pull the hem of her robes up. "I'd hate to disappoint."

He didn't.

. . . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - a dramione chapter for tumblr anon with finals stealing her sleep_**


	285. Chapter 285 (Valentine's Day: 8 of 10)

Hannah wiped down the table and sank into a chair with a groan. To say the day had been long didn't begin to describe it. The whole weekend had felt endless as Hogwarts students trailed down to Hogsmeade to celebrate Valentine's Day, even if it was a day or two early, with candy and grown up meals out for their sweethearts. The day itself, thank Circe, had been a Monday so she'd been spared another day of groping students outfitted in red jumpers that should never have seen the light of day. At least she wasn't Madam Puddifoot's so she didn't get quite as many lovelorn teenagers.

She'd had enough, however.

She had had more than enough.

"Long day?" Neville asked. He'd slipped in through the back while she wasn't looking and she nodded with exhaustion.

"Long weekend," she said.

"You loved every minute," he said. He pulled a chair up next to her and began to work a shoe off her foot. "Feeding people, talking to people, nudging people toward better choices." He had the shoe off and her foot in his lap before she opened her mouth to object that she still had dishes to do and the kitchen was a disaster, but he was kneading his thumbs into the sole of her foot and everything else became less important. The dishes, her tired brain told her, would still be there. "Any budding romances that charmed you?"

She laughed and closed her eyes as he rubbed away. "Not today," she said. "Today was all people long married and having a night out. The buds were all yesterday and Saturday." He moved to the other foot and she let out a sigh of utter satisfaction.

"I cleaned up the current sink of dishes on my way through the kitchen," Neville said as he worked at her feet and she sagged even lower in the chair as more ease stole over her. No real responsibilities left today, everything was closed up, and she had covered plates of dinner for the pair of them on the counter.

"You really are the best," she said. She opened an eye to peer at him. "Any news on that weird little weed you found?"

Neville's voice took on the excited quiver it got when he talked about plants and she could feel the smile take over her face as he told her about how he'd gotten several notes back from prominent herbologists who, he knew, had probably only bothered to open his initial correspondence because he was _the_ Neville Longbottom, the war hero with the sword, but they'd become intrigued by the plant and no one seemed to have anything similar in their records.

"You'll be famous," she said. "The herbologist who discovered a new variety of… what is that again?"

"I am famous," he said, the tone suddenly much tenser and his fingers stilling against the bottom of her foot.

She wiggled her toes. "I mean for something that matters," she said. "Something good. Neville Longbottom, plant researcher. I wonder if it does anything interesting in Potions or for medicine."

He let out a sigh and began to knead her foot again. "I like that idea better than what people know me for now," he said. "Though at least my gran is finally proud of me."

Hannah let out a rude snort. She wasn't the biggest fan of Neville's family. She was always polite but the way they'd made him feel like he was a failure until he was a hero grated on her and probably always would.

"I asked Slughorn to look it over," Neville said, "but you know how he is."

Lazy, Hannah thought to herself. It wasn't a trait she admired. "Maybe ask Draco?" she suggested. "Or Hermione? They were always both good at Potions and he's pretty clever at figuring things out." She thought about suggesting Theodore, who had, as far as she knew, nothing to do and had been a dab hand himself with a cauldron, but maybe it was too soon and that would still be too raw.

"I'll do that," Neville said. "I've already sent a sample off to Padma who's promised to look into it." He stood up and held out a hand and when she took it he pulled her into a hug and then picked her up.

"Nev!" she said. "I've still got to - "

"Lie in bed and be worshipped for hours?" he suggested. "It is Valentine's Day, after all. I know you'd be offended if I tried to take you out, and when I brought home chocolates once you kept analyzing how you could make them better instead of just enjoying, so I'm left with nothing to offer but sex."

She giggled, somewhat less tired than she'd been fifteen minutes before. "Well, maybe a shower first?"

"Done," he said, and carried her up the stairs in the back of the pub to their little apartment.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all for all your kind words and support. It means the world to me._**


	286. Chapter 286 (Valentine's Day: 9 of 10)

Lucius drew with a finger that moved in languid, almost lazy, circles across his wife's thigh. She made a vague gesture to bat his hand away and murmured a token complaint that she was tired. She should be tired, he thought to himself with some pride. They weren't kids anymore and time had taken instant gratification and replaced it with experience and patience. She'd liked the chocolates, his token nod to Valentine's. He'd liked her casual comment that the Malfoys were well on their way to being on top again.

Though, in retrospect, she'd spent plenty of time on top herself.

It had been a delightfully long evening.

"Remember our first Valentine's Day?" he asked her.

She sniffed. The idea she'd forget was ludicrous. He'd been out of Hogwarts, dutifully willing to take whatever tedious bride his father selected, so when he'd been instructed to meet with the daughters of the House of Black he'd thought nothing of it. "Just tell me which one," he'd said. His father had laughed and told him the Blacks were rich in daughters - and galleons - so he could take his pick. Then Andromeda, never to be spoken of, ran off with a man so far beneath her it was a cliche right out of the tawdriest of novels. When he'd gone to meet the now two daughters of the shamed family, the parents had been far more obsequious than they would have been before their public humiliation. The Malfoys, after all, were new money compared to the Blacks, though, of course, everyone was. A week earlier they had probably considered him lucky to aspire to marry one of their girls; the day he arrived, Valentine's Day, they'd been grateful his father hadn't pulled out of the implied contract.

Lucius had taken one look at Bellatrix and decided he'd rather die celibate. She had a look in her eye that reminded him of a hound he'd once had. The dog had been off from his puppy days, mean and snappish. His father had made him put the beast down after it went after a half-blood child in the nearest village. He'd gotten a lecture on responsibility and the safety of the community when he'd balked at killing the beast. Bellatrix's parents had more than balked, he suspected. They'd outright refused to get the girl whatever help might have kept her from turning into… whatever she'd been at the end. But even as a nubile girl of marrying age, she'd had that look of cruelty and instability and he'd wanted nothing to do with her. She'd been trouble and troubled.

"You were beautiful," Lucius said now to the daughter of the House of Black he'd chosen almost before he'd seen her.

"After Andromeda's misalliance?" Narcissa raised a delicate, perfectly shaped eyebrow. "I wouldn't have dared to be otherwise."

"You shone like a star in the blackest night," he said. The words were poetic but true. Narcissa had worn demure, white robes with her hair half up and, if he'd been foolish enough to eat anything her parents had offered him, he might have suspected them of slipping him a love potion. He'd been taken and held captive by her smile that first day, enraged at the hint of a bruise blooming at the neckline of her dress, determined to marry her.

"You were not unpleasant to look at," Narcissa said. She rolled onto her side and reached a hand out to trace some of the lines war, captivity, and pain had left on his face. "And age has only made you more pleasing to my eye."

"Pleasing to other parts of you as well," he said, "or so the noises you were making a few minutes ago indicated."

"There is no part of me you do not please," she said, her fingers resting now on his lips. "And so, for you, I shall rebuild the House of Malfoy."

Lucius settled back into the deep pillows and let out a sigh. Before he could formulate even the mildest warning about the perils of blood supremacy and learning from what hells it had led them to, she went on.

"Miss Granger is permitting me to plan a wedding that will ensure we are once again at the center of the firmament. She will join my charitable works and we will be seen arm in arm by everyone who matters. Draco's students will grow up adoring him and move on to take places in the highest echelons, aided by Miss Granger and myself. That little Azusa is already sending me owls about her ideas." Narcissa drew her finger down over his throat, along his torso, and still lower. "The world will be at our feet, or, if not ours perhaps, the feet of our son and grandchildren."

Lucius felt himself stir again in response to the vision she laid out before him: not Draco, perhaps, but a grandchild as Minister for Magic; a respected, brilliant war heroine doting on his son; adults grown to power thinking of Professor Malfoy as their trusted favorite.

"Sweet words," he said to her. "Sweet thoughts."

"It is Valentine's Day, after all," Narcissa said. "A day for sweetness."

Age and illness might have robbed him of the resiliency he'd had on their wedding night but, as he proceeded to demonstrate, he wasn't feeble quite yet.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all for your own multitudinous sweet words and thoughts._**


	287. Chapter 287 (Valentine's Day: 10 of 10)

Theodore had made the restaurant reservations weeks before Valentine's Day. The establishment reeked of wealth and privilege, and, while a woman had sniffed at the way he and Percy had held hands in George's shop, no one here would be so vulgar as to admit such a thing was worthy of notice. The maitre'd certainly hadn't batted an eye when Theodore had shown up, Percy at his side, the one man almost indifferent to the surroundings and the other doing his best to appear so. He had simply shown them to a table and informed them their server would be with them shortly. A bottle of sparkling water, individual rolls placed on bread plates by a server whose sole job appeared to be keeping diners in carbohydrates, and a brief consultation with the server about the specials later, Theodore raised his glass toward Percy and said, simply, "To you."

Percy raised his glass in return and then pulled a small box out of an inside pocket. He set it down on the table and frowned a moment before he said, almost as if he were apologizing, "No one does this anymore."

"Celebrates Valentine's Day?" Theodore pulled a puzzled look to his face. "I can assure you, the noises I heard in Blaise's room as we left suggested that people do."

Percy gave his partner one of his trademark quelling looks and Theodore dutifully closed his mouth against the next glib remark he'd had ready. It was easier to dance around anything real.

"Even my parents didn't do this," Percy went on. "I doubt my grandparents did, but at one point it was customary to give your partner, well before you did anything formal such an engagement ring, a gift of jewellery to, well, to mark that person as yours."

"To pee on them," Theodore said, "like a dog marking his territory."

The look Percy gave him at that suggested he didn't care for the analogy.

"Sorry," Theodore muttered. "I am aware of the tradition, though, and you are correct. Even my father didn't do it. It's beyond old fashioned. My grandmother, however, wore the necklace my grandfather gave her every day until she died, or so my mother told me. You can see it in the portrait up on the third floor over by that room with all the broken library catalogue cabinets."

"That room has a mouse problem," Percy said, temporarily distracted. "I think they're nesting in the drawers of one of those cabinets."

"Two kneazles in the house and we still have mice," Theodore said. "Go figure."

"It's an old house," Percy said. "We should have Hermione go through all her wandless research and see what she's got on pest control."

Theodore agreed that was a good idea and took a sip from his water glass and tried not to stare at the small box still sitting in front of Percy on the table. Percy, who took a deep breath, and then slid the box toward him. "I was hoping you would consent to wear this," he said. "A present from me."

Theodore's fingers fumbled and almost dropped the tiny box as he tried to get it open. Jewellery didn't mean what it had to his grandmother, that was true. He wouldn't be publicly branding himself as taken in quite the same way he would have had a witch given him a tiny box like this a hundred years previously. It was clear by the way Percy had introduced it, however, that this _was_ exactly what it would have meant to his grandmother. "Good thing this isn't a thing anymore," he said, trying to control his nerves as his fingers became suddenly thick and clumsy and couldn't untie the simple bit of string holding the box closed. "Otherwise I'd be not quite engaged to Hermione."

"That would be a problem," Percy agreed. "For both Draco and myself."

Theodore finally got the box open and looked down at the single, not insubstantial, ruby earring. Gryffindor colours. Percy wasn't messing around, he thought to himself. There was no way anyone would ever think he might have bought this for himself. He reached out a finger and touched the red stone and then looked back up at the man sitting across from him. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"You'll have to pierce your ear," Percy said. "I wasn't… but rings have so much - "

"That's not a problem," Theodore said. He'd never heard Percy sound quite so lacking in confidence. "We can get it done tonight." He took a deep breath and added, trying not to let his own voice shake, "I guess you plan to keep me."

Percy reached a hand across the table, his self-assurance restored, and brushed a hand over Theodore's mouth. "Mine," he said. The words were quiet but it seemed to Theodore like they echoed through the whole, hushed space of the restaurant.

The waiter chose that moment to return. "Do you gentlemen know what you'd like or do you need a little more time to look over the menus?"

Percy dropped his hand. "I know what I want," he said, and opened the menu for the first time.

"So do I," Theodore said as he proceeded to place his dinner order.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - And so comes to a close Valentines's Day, where, in a twist I never would have predicted, the least popular pairing - by far - was the dramione chapter._**


	288. Chapter 288 (A Picnic)

Draco nudged her and Hermione groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. "Go 'way," she muttered. "It's still dark out. Have you gone mental?"

Draco, however, had a firm belief that his plan was brilliant, that certainty made him indefatigable, and Hermione finally gave in to the inevitable and dragged her protesting body out of what was a very nice, very warm bed, pulled the jumper he handed her on over her pajamas, and shoved her feet into shoes. "This had better be good," she muttered as he tugged her and nudged her and let her down the stairs, through the back hallway, round a corner, out the door, and across the park that was Theodore's back garden.

"Honestly," Hermione continued to grumble, "the land use for these manors is excessive."

When they reached the destination he'd set up, however, her mumbling stopped and she stared at the midnight picnic in wonder. Draco has spread a blanket out over the grass, a basket sat to one side, and a thermos tempted. The air around the blanket was much too warm for late February, hinting magic had been at play. She looked back at him. "Remember our first date?" he asked.

"It was hardly a date," she protested as he knelt down and began pouring hot chocolate into two ready mugs. "It was mostly me goading you."

"I'd had no idea you were such a rule breaker," he agreed. She sat down on the blanket next to him and took the chocolate he handed her. "Swotty, perfect Granger, out after curfew, with me of all people."

"You were the only choice," she pointed out.

"Mmm," he said. "A fortuitous bit of happenstance, though I like to think we'd have ended up together that next year even without spending hours together dusting off old books under the watchful eye of Madam Pince and her questionable novels."

Hermione leaned up against him and he wrapped his arm around her. " _The Werewolf Comes at the Full Moon_ ," she said as she thought about the lurid creature romances the buttoned-up librarian had read on what she'd thought was the sly.

Draco sniggered. " _The Inferi Rises Again_?"

" _The Centaur is Man Enough_?" Hermione suggested.

" _The House Elf_ ," Draco began but Hermione made gagging noises. "Too much?" he asked.

"Way too much," she said. She settled back and tipped her head up so she could see the night sky. Other than a single light burning in Susan's room as the politician read briefs into the wee hours, the house was dark and the isolated, and substantial, grounds allowed for excellent star-gazing. She let her eyes pick out first one constellation and then another as Draco sipped his chocolate and she listened to the steady thrum of his heart.

After a bit he said, "Is my mum making you crazy?"

"With wedding planning?" Hermione asked. At his exasperated yes noise, she laughed. "Not really. I just told her to do whatever she wanted as long as it didn't upset the elves."

"That's good then," Draco said. He tightened his arms and said, "I know she can be overwhelming when she gets on a tear."

"I just wish," Hermione began and then stopped. Draco nudged her and she sighed. It wasn't that she wanted to exclude anyone, and she understood the party was already being heralded as the event of the season and invitations were hotly coveted. It just sometimes seemed overwhelming. It had been just the two of them when they'd been huddled together against the world and now everyone wanted a piece of one or the other of them.

"What?" he asked. "Tell me and I'll make it happen."

"I just wish the wedding could be… Us. Just us," she said. "Just us and our best friends. No receiving line, no cocktail hour, no one we have to have there for political reasons." Draco got one of the crafty smirks he sometimes let out of hiding on his face, and Hermione hastened to add, "I understand why we have to do it the way your mother is planning. If we want to set up the kind of power base that allows us to do things like put Susan into the Wizengamot we need –"

"Not at the wedding we don't," Draco said. "I have an idea.

He told her his plan and her smile grew until she pushed him down and pressed her chocolate-flavoured lips against his. "Have I told you lately that I adore you?" she asked.

He laughed as he nibbled at the edge of her mouth and lay a line of kisses along her jaw. "No?" he said.

"I love you," she whispered against his skin. "I love you, my star-gazing, midnight picnic planning dragon."

"Well," he said, "I do have a constellation named after me. Makes me special."

She might have smacked him at that, but he distracted her in ways sufficiently compelling she decided to let his smug pride in his starry name go unremarked.


	289. Chapter 289 (A Meeting with McGonagall)

"I really wish you had come in yesterday," Minerva said as Hermione settled down into the chair in the Headmistress' office. As usual, books seemed to be sorting themselves along the wall, sliding in and out of places on the shelf, and at a side table a quill took ardent notes from one volume that lay obligingly open. "It was quite chaotic and another hand with warming charms would have been most appreciated."

Hermione forced a smile to her face as her fingers convulsed around the parchment held in their sweaty grasp. "I was under the impression when I took the job that you understood I would be spending weekends at home," she said. "I have tried to help out with Gryffindor, but the truth is I'm not actually their Head of House."

Minerva smiled at her, a placating look Hermione recognized all too well from faculty meetings. This was the smile the woman used when Horace Slughorn complained students arrived with inadequate potions equipment and he had to supplement from the school supplies, or when parents sent in owls asking whether she planned to find a _living_ history teacher any time soon. To be fair, it was also the look she directed at members of the community still outraged that Draco Malfoy, Death Eater and villain, taught at Hogwarts. Minerva McGonagall had to do a lot of placating in her job. "You are still a little young to be _in loco parentis_ the way a Head of House needs to be," she said.

But not too young to do the work, Hermione thought to herself. Three years ago - even one year ago - she would have been flattered she'd been asked to take on so much. She would have happily taken on the task of coming in for an extra, unpaid day so she could shore up warming charms for this year's Holi celebration and act as a referee to rein in the worst of the chaos. She could still see remnants of all the coloured chalks on the stones of the courtyard and frozen into the ice of the no-longer-charmed-to-warmth outdoors. "Thus why I was home this weekend," she said. "I'm not the Head of Gryffindor House."

She's stuck her head into the Common Room before making her way up to Minerva's office and Andy and Sari had nearly knocked her over with their stories of how they'd snuck up on _all_ the Slytherin girls and smeared them with red chalk. Sari had even charmed it so it wouldn't wash away and they were pretty sure that Crina still had red in her hair. Hermione had groaned and then laughed and told them they were all menaces. By the look of the streak of green down one side of Andy's face, the Slytherins had given as good as they'd gotten. Sari had a stripe of blue on the back of her head. A good time had apparently been had by all.

"I'm turning in my notice," Hermione said in a rush as she shoved the paper toward Minerva. The twinkle in the woman's eye went out as if a light switch had been turned off. "I don't think I'm really well suited for this. Draco is," she went on, the words coming out so quickly it was a wonder the Headmistress could even understand them, "but I'm just not. I want to research and… and… this is - "

"How will you live?" Minerva asked. "Do you have something else lined up? We could - "

The woman stopped talking when her eyes landed on the ring sparkling on Hermione's hand and her smile became even more pinched. "Of course," she said. "I suppose that isn't really a factor for you, is it?"

Hermione flushed. She didn't think she'd ever get comfortable with the notion of just how wealthy Draco was, or Theodore, or, by extension, her. I'm not with him because of that, she wanted to say. He's not just that. Instead, however, she just said, "I'll finish out the year, of course."

"Of course," Minerva said. She smoothed out the crumpled parchment and set it on a pile. "Fortunately, unless I can expect a similar visit from Mr. Malfoy, I don't need to start a search for a new staff member."

"Draco plans to stay," Hermione said. "If you'll have him, of course."

"Why wouldn't we?" Minerva asked, her brows sliding upward as if she were surprised by even the suggestion. "Is there anything else?" she asked.

"No," Hermione said. She stood and turned to go.

Her hand was on the door knob when Minerva added, "I'm looking forward to your wedding. The reception promises to be the event of the year."

Hermione's smile became a tad more genuine. "The decade, if Narcissa has anything to say about it."

"Indeed," Minerva said. "Have a lovely day, Miss Granger. I'll see you at this afternoon's staff meeting."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Ten chapters plus an epilogue to go. Thank you for all the love and support along the way._**


	290. Chapter 290 (Breakfast at Nott Manor)

Theodore couldn't keep from touching the earring. Getting it had hurt more than he'd expected - somehow he'd thought his earlobe wouldn't have quite as many nerves as it had, indeed, turned out to have - and fussing with it just brought back an echo of that pain. Still, his hand kept going up to it. Wanted. Valued, despite being a Death Eater's son, despite not being a hero, despite being sober by the narrowest of margins. Promised. Even if they weren't engaged, the indication they would be, later, when they'd had more time, meant the world to him.

"You keep fiddling with that thing and it'll end up infected," Hermione said. She's been watching him turn it around and around from the doorway and now she sat down at the breakfast table opposite him and poured herself a glass of the apple juice that was this week's must-drink courtesy of the elves. Not even cider, Blaise had groused, but only safely away from the manor. Not even _soft_ cider, but juice. Was this a drink for wizarding adults?

Hermione just drank the juice. She preferred not attracting attention from the tiny busy-bodies who had developed recent opinions on wedding reception seating arrangements and kept threatening to make her sit down with a chart and help them decide who sat with whom. If apple juice kept her from having to discuss whether Luna Lovegood should sit with Theodore because the elves had a _feeling_ they belonged together, then she'd drink the juice.

"It won't," Theodore said. "Don't be ridiculous. How could it get infected just by my touching it?"

"Will," Hermione said. "Ask Padma. Parvati pierced both hers third year and they got so bad she had to go to Madam Pomfrey. Pus and everything."

Theodore made a face and muttered a few things about what kind of person brings up pus over breakfast but he dropped his hand.

"I like it," Hermione added. "The red suits you."

"I suppose," Theodore said. He grinned. "Matches the scarf, anyway."

Hermione made a bit of a pro-forma groan. That runaway knitting project was going to haunt her until she died. Theodore had hauled it out to wear again over the winter and he'd smirked at her over the mound of yarn every time. All she said, however, was, "Yes. We'll make a Gryffindor of you yet."

It was Theodore who groaned at that, though he added slyly, "Or a Slytherin out of you."

"There's no call to be nasty, now," Hermione said. She helped herself to fruit and, wonder of wonders, fresh, sweetened cream for the very early blackberries. She wondered if Kreacher had found a way to force an early yield or if the elves had some kind of access to out of season fruit. She'd never stopped to contemplate how grocery shopping happened at Nott Manor. Food just appeared. She had a brief image of one of the elves popping into Tescos and filling up a cart and had to suppress a giggle. When Theodore raised an eyebrow she said, "I'll tell you later."

She took another swallow of juice and examined Theodore. He looked happy, happier than he had in a long while, and the ruby sparkled. "Not small," she said. "That rock, I mean."

Theodore looked perplexed and she sighed. Sometimes dealing with these boys and their unthinking privilege was exhausting and after McGonagall's comment about how she didn't need to work she was especially sensitive to the matter. Theodore had surely noticed the earring wasn't a chip, and he knew it had to be costly, it just didn't occur to him that that was anything out of the ordinary. All jewellery, unless you were getting something for a small child, was costly and had large stones. "Percy had to save for that," she said by way of explanation. "I'm not sure what his salary is, but he planned for that for a while."

Theodore fumbled with his glass for a moment before he muttered, "Well, it's a _thing_ , you know."

"A _thing_?" Hermione had no idea what he was talking about. He was halfway through the explanation of promise gifts and really old - 'I mean, really old, Hermione' - pureblood customs before she began to giggle. She lifted her wrist, still decorated with the bracelet he'd given her the past fall, and asked, "So, does this mean I have to tell Draco, sorry, but I'm off to marry my kind-of brother?"

"Eww," Theodore looked at her with disgust. "Do I look like one of the Blacks to you?"

It took her a moment, but by the time Draco made his way down to breakfast Hermione and Theodore were both so busy giggling he decided it was probably wiser not to ask.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - As requested by several people: theomione fluff. Thank you all for your ongoing support of this story, and things. It means the world._**


	291. Chapter 291 (Easter Holiday: 1 of 4)

Andy sat in the Hogwarts Express on the way home for the Easter holiday sharing the candy Crina had bought from the trolley. "I thought you usually just snuck home via the Floo," Ivy said, her feet tucked under her and a candy quill in her mouth. "Why the train this time?"

Andy swallowed his Every Flavour Bean - licorice, thank Merlin because he'd been having bad luck lately - and said, "I'm going to my dad's." There was a Floo connection at his house, just so he could go to Theo's, but while people at Hogwarts looked the other way when he slipped over to the Manor on weekends, he didn't think that same tolerance would extend to a trip to a Muggle house instead of a teacher's place.

They all tried not to look so surprised he was going _home_ home. "I thought," Trista said before she stopped, not sure what to say.

"Yeah," Andy said, "But I guess Hermio… Professor Granger has been writing him and telling him stuff and he sent an owl and said I should come home for the holiday."

"That's great," Trista said, lacing her fingers through his. He squeezed her hand and hoped it would go well. He'd crossed each day off the calendar in his room once he knew his father wanted him to come home and waited for the last day before the holiday. He'd drawn the X over Thursday, April 20 the night before and double checked his bag to make sure there were no obviously magical items and now here he was, on the train going home.

His dad wasn't at the station but Andy was used to that. He took a cab with Muggle money, unlocked the door of their house, and dropped the small bag he'd brought home in the small entrance hall. "Dad?" he called.

There was no answer and Andy wondered if his father were still at work. He wandered into the kitchen to rifle through the cupboards for snacks and saw the tea kettle sitting over a hot burner. When he went to pick it up the whole kettle was too hot to touch and seemed to have boiled dry. He turned the heat off and called again, a little more unsure, "Dad?"

There was still no answer and Andy began to go from room to room, checking to see what was going on. It wasn't like his father to leave the kettle on. It wasn't like him not to answer. He wasn't in the small parlour or out on the back stoop, so Andy grabbed his bag and climbed the stairs. His own room was as bare as usual, with a neatly made bed and drawers filled with folded Muggle clothes. Muggle books sat on the shelves. He set his bag down by the desk, bare except for what looked like a new book his dad had gotten for him.

He found his father when he stuck his head with some caution into what he still thought of as his parents' bedroom. The man lay on the rug, half on his back, half on one side, a shattered pair of spectacles just beyond his outstretched arm.

"Dad?" Andy asked again. His voice shook. There was no response.

Okay, Andy thought to himself. It's okay. He's had a heart attack or something. It happens. I'll just call and he'll go to hospital and everything will be fine. I know what to do.

No one spent a year with the Carrows and didn't learn to check whether people were still breathing. Andy knew basic first aid the way he knew how to fly. He had laid his fingers across the lips of more than one unconscious body, and every time he'd felt the reassuring puff of air as the victim breathed in and out.

He knelt down by the body here and, just as he'd always done at Hogwarts, held his fingers over his father's mouth.

There was nothing.

He held the fingers closer and still nothing.

He grabbed at the limp wrist and checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

He stood up and backed away until he ran into the wall and knocked off the photograph of his parents on a date at the beach, his mum laughing as she stood waist deep in the water, beckoning to his father to join her. The frame fell to the floor and the glass fragmented around the Italian dress shoes Blaise had given him. "No," Andy said, then he repeated it louder "No! You wanted me to come home. You _wanted_ me."

He dug at his eyes with the heel of his hand and heard himself screaming that it wasn't fair. This wasn't _fair_. Not _now. Not NOW._

He was never sure how he got downstairs to the small fireplace or how he found the Floo powder. He didn't hear himself say, "Nott Manor" or feel himself whoosh away. He was just standing against the wall in his parent's room, glass at his feet, and then he was flinging himself into the arms of a startled Theodore Nott and crying as if he'd never be able to stop.

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I'm sorry?_**


	292. Chapter 292 (Easter Holiday: 2 of 4)

Late Friday night the adults of Nott Manor, such as they were, held a meeting. Andy had passed out asleep, aided somewhat by the Calming Draught Draco had added to a cup of chocolate; the tiny kneazle Pansy had given him slept curled against his side.

"We have to find his family," Theodore said. "There has to be someone."

Hermione, however, shook her head. "There isn't," she said. "No one magical, at least. His mum was a Muggle-born and, well, you know what his dad was like." She'd spent months trying to convince the man to reach out to his son. She wondered now if that had been a good idea. She felt uncomfortably guilty, as though she had made the man's death that much worse with her good intentions.

"So we find a Muggle aunt or something," Theodore said. He was sure that blood relatives would be a better choice until Percy coughed and reminded him of the situation with Harry and his less-than-stellar Muggle relatives. That made them all slouch down over their own cups of tea and chocolate. No magical relatives. No relatives _at all_ that he was close to and certainly not a one that knew he was a wizard.

"Couldn't we just… take him?" Draco asked, voicing what many of them were thinking. "He's already here."

Hermione raised her hand as if she were going to hit him, then let it drop back to the table in tired defeat. "You can't take a kid in just because you want to," she said, ignoring that Dumbledore had effectively forced Harry's aunt to do exactly that when he left the boy on her doorstep. Sometimes the wizarding world baffled her.

Percy took a precise sip of his chocolate before he said, sounding a little uncomfortable with the notion, "We can, actually. Whether we just take him, as Draco puts it, depends if we plan to merely provide shelter or actually wish to be established as _in loco parentis._ "

"Explain." Hermione could hear how short she was being and she tried to school her expression into one of pleasant encouragement. She doubted, based on Draco's sour snort, that she was successful.

"What Headmaster Dumbledore did was a trifle irregular," Percy began.

Hermione let out a scoffing noise as if to say, 'oh, really?' but mumbled an apology when Percy folded his arms and acted as if he had no plans to go on in the face of her rudeness. At her mumble he started again.

"If you plan to take a child in informally, the way my parents did with Harry and the way we have with Andy, you simply do it. There's very little oversight."

Hermione had noticed.

"If you are dealing with issues of inheritance, however, you have to file an intent to adopt with the Ministry, followed by a document saying an official has witnessed the bonding ceremony and that the child is now a full legal child of the adopting parents - or parent - with all rights and responsibilities of an heir." He took another sip. "Blood status remains unchanged, however, so if, for example, my mother had adopted Hermione before the war, she would have remained a Muggle-born in the eyes of the legal system. Similarly, Andromeda Tonks né Black remains a pureblood despite being disowned."

"Charming," Hermione said. "As always, blood status."

"So," Percy went on, "the real question becomes do we wish to simply take the boy in and merely avoid mentioning to the Ministy he lacks a living, legal guardian - and, I assure you, it wouldn't be the first time that had happened - or does someone wish to form an official, parental bond with the boy?"

"You have to adopt him," Blaise said. He hadn't spoken until now, but he sounded surer than they were used to hearing from the playboy. Susan touched his arm in a silent question and he shrugged. "He doesn't think anyone really wants him," Blaise said. "He's always just being tolerated. If you just let him stay here, fancy room and spending money or not, he'll never feel like he really belongs, never feel like he has a home." He took a sip of chocolate and made a bit of a face. "Don't do that to him."

"So, Draco and Hermione adopt him," Theodore said. Everyone looked at him and he slouched even lower than he had been in his seat. "They're… engaged," he said, the word obviously not the one he'd planned to say. "And Draco's great with kids," he added. "A natural."

"Are you an idiot?" Blaise demanded right as Hermione said, "You better not be implying what I think you're implying."

"It's just," Theodore began.

"He adores you," Hermione said. "And you two… it seems right."

"You'd have to ask him, of course," Percy said. He fussed with a napkin as he spoke and didn't quite look at Theodore. "Especially because there are issues of a not insignificant about of money involved and the bonding isn't reversible." He looked up at that. "He would be your heir if you went forward."

"Well," Theodore said. He reached his hand out and laced his fingers through Percy's. Percy squeezed back and the two of them came to a silent agreement. "Look at us, following my father's last wishes."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Good morning, loveliest people!_**


	293. Chapter 293 (Easter Holiday: 3 of 4)

Andy poked at his toast over breakfast and shook his head when Hermione asked if he'd like any marmalade or pumpkin juice. She opened her mouth, but, at the sight of the minute shake of Susan's head, closed it again.

"Where do I go?" Andy asked as they sat there, all casting about for things to say and pulling back one empty hook after another. "What do I do now?"

"You stay here," Theodore said. The words were instant and automatic and unthinking. "This is your home."

Andy started to cry again. "He'd bought me a new book," he said. "It was on my desk."

"We'll go get it," Hermione said. "All your things. Anything you want."

There was another long silence after that as they all chewed and drank and swallowed. Loss was no mystery to any of them and they all sat with ghosts hovering behind them, faces contorted in pleas to not do that curse, eyes closing on hospital beds, a happy couple childlessly enjoying the beaches of Australia. How do you welcome a child to the club no one wants to be a member of?

"I don't want to impose," Andy said as his fingers ripped his toast into smaller and smaller bits that he didn't eat. "Maybe I have an aunt or a cousin or something."

"No." Susan said the word flatly. "We aren't dumping you on the doorstep of some Muggle relative who won't understand about Hogwarts and will just tell you to keep a stiff upper lip. No."

"Fuck that noise," Blaise said. "You're one of us."

Percy looked at Theodore, straightened his spectacles, and folded his hands in front of him. "The question, Andrew, is not where you go. Rather obviously, you stay here. The question is, do you wish to stay in much the way that Blaise has stayed, as a bit of a house guest who never leaves – "

"Hey," Blaise said.

Percy ignored him. " – or do you wish to be adopted."

Andy's fingers stilled.

"You are welcome to stay here no matter what you choose," Theodore said quickly. "You don't have to… You don't have to buy acceptance by – ."

"Who would… What does adoption mean?" Andy asked.

Theodore swallowed hard. "I would," he said. The next sentences fell out of his mouth one after another as awkward kittens stumbling out of a box and tangling their feet around the others' tails. "I know I'm only a few years older than you are, I'm not trying to replace your father, no one can… And there's… there are _things_ about being a Nott you'd have to think about. It's… I don't want you to feel pressured or…"

"How would it work?"

Percy answered the practical element of the question. "We'd have to file paperwork with the Ministry and do a bonding ceremony. Either Susan or I could legally do it." He leveled a steady glance first at the boy and then at his partner. "It's not reversible, you understand? If you and Theodore were to do this, it would be forever. Even if he were to decide to conceive a biological child with a witch, you would be the oldest child and thus the Nott heir."

"You would make me…?" Andy stared at Theodore, the waved his hand around the dining room with all its paintings and antique furniture.

"I assure you, it's a burden, not a privilege," Theodore said. He closed his eyes for a brief moment. " _Noblesse oblige_ used to mean something. Being a Nott used to be about… It wasn't always violence."

"It was always blood status," Susan said, half under her breath. "It was a Nott who wrote that Sacred Twenty-Eight garbage down."

"That's done," Theodore said. "That bullshite ends."

"We all have embarrassing family members," Blaise said. "Wait until you meet my latest step-father."

"Can't wait," Susan muttered.

"Hell would freeze before I'd let him near you," Blaise said, taking her hand in his. "I was speaking rhetorically, not planning a party. If we're lucky, he'll have an unfortunate accident before long."

No one commented on that uncomfortable statement.

Andy took a deep breath and said, "I want to do it." His kitten came strolling into the room, tail held high. She let out a yowl and jumped first to Andy's lap and then to the table where she sat and licked a paw as if to say all that she surveyed belonged to her. Hermione batted ineffectually at the Kneazle to get her off the table and Draco laughed at the way the red and gold creature ignored her. She didn't even rate a look of feline contempt.

"I want to do it," Andy said again. "I want to do it today."

Theodore opened his mouth, probably to say something about not rushing, but Percy cut him off. "Today isn't quite possible," he said. "I can go into the office and get all the paperwork settled, but the soonest we could realistically do the bonding would be tomorrow. Sunday."

"Then tomorrow," Andy said.

Percy pushed his chair back. "Shall I get the legal documentation taken care of and slipped into the proper files?"

Everyone was agreeing he should do that when Hermione suddenly said, "Shite."

Draco squinted at her.

"We have to owl Pansy to come or she'll kill all of us."

. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - Thank you all. I've said it before and I mean it. The monster that is this story has been powered by your kindness and support. There is no other way I could have kept his going for this long at this pace. Thank you._**


	294. Chapter 294 (Easter Holiday: 4 of 4)

Pansy didn't even knock Sunday morning and Theodore heard a voice in the back of his head ask how the woman had somehow charmed the elves to have permanent entry into his home but he didn't pursue it. She also didn't greet him. She just pushed herself past, dropped a bag he could only hope was kitten free, and dragged Andy into a hug the boy seemed to both want and recoil from in adolescent aggravation.

Pansy stepped back. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I came as soon as I heard."

"It's not fair," Andy said. His jaw clenched and his whole body seemed to tighten as if he could lock away the sadness. "It's not."

"No," Pansy agreed. "It's a fucking cock up is what it is."

Blaise, who'd come in and hovered in the doorway as though he weren't sure he was welcome, strangled a cough at her language. She glanced up at him and rolled her eyes, but didn't comment. Instead she reached across and put a hand under Andy's chin and tilted her head up the tiniest bit so she could look into his eyes. "Are you quite sure about this adoption?" she asked. "It's fast, kidlet. You don't have to make a decision right away. And if this prick kicked you out - which he would never do, but if he did - you could always come and live with me and Charlie."

It was Percy who strangled a cough at that idea.

Andy's sniffle, however, was audible and three men all started feeling in their pockets for a clean handkerchief to no avail. As Andy said, "You'd let me do that?" Pansy gave the lot of assembled, handkerchief-less purebloods a disgusted look, accioed a small package of Muggle tissues from her bag, and handed it over.

"Of course I would," she said.

At that Andy flung his arms around her and hugged her again, this time without any evidence of squirming or wishing he could be elsewhere. "I'm good," he said. "I want to belong here."

The tiny, stomping, pink-clad elf who'd come into the room sniffed at that and said something that sounded rather like the boy already belonged here and humans were so stupid and did anyone want any refreshments before the ceremony? Theodore was about to say that, no, he didn't think anyone was hungry, but the look on the creature's face stopped him. "Whatever you've prepared would be lovely," he said. "Thank you."

The elf stomped off again, a pink train of tulle dragged behind her.

"Is she wearing bridesmaid's robes?" Pansy asked, her eyes following the pink netting as it disappeared around a corner.

"Fucked if I know," Blaise said.

"Don't ask," Theodore muttered. "They all went up to the attics to find things for Draco and Hermione's wedding and it's been a fashion show ever since."

"Can we just do this?" Andy asked. "I just want to do it."

"I must, in good conscience, say again," Percy said as he fussed with the edge of his cuffs, "This is not something you can undo so you have to be quite sure it's what you want. Once you're bonded to Theodore, you are. House, elves, name and all. You mustn't let our desires to take you in and make you family influence you. If you'd prefer to wait, simply say so."

The elf must have alerted the rest of the household because Susan, Draco and Hermione slipped into the room. Hermione and Pansy exchanged the small smiles of women who've missed one another but aren't planning to make a show of it right then.

"I know it's forever," Andy said to Percy. "I want to do it. I'll _belong_."

"Oh, sweetheart," Susan said. "You already do."

But it was clear Andy was set on his course and Susan sighed and let it go. "The paperwork is all filed," she said. "Custody of Andy has been neatly transferred, sans hearing, to Theodore Nott, pending adoption bonding. My first abuse of power."

"You aren't in the Wizengamot yet," Blaise said. "So, technically, you don't have a lot of power."

"Technicalities - " she began.

"Count," Blaise said firmly.

"Let's do this," Draco said.

The bonding ritual was short and not at all impressive. Theodore held Andy's wrist in his grasp, Susan made them both verbally confirm they understood the bond they were about to form and entered into it of their own free will, and then she did the magic. Silver light poured out of her wand and wrapped around man and boy, sparkled for a moment, then dissipated.

"Is that it?" Andy asked after a moment. "I don't feel any different."

"I'm afraid that's it," Susan said. "You're a scion of the House of Nott now, wealthy beyond imagining, somewhat hated for your family's participation in the war, and still two years away from your O.W.L.s so, I imagine, also burdened with a curfew and expectations."

"The burden of expectations are what we specialize in at the House of Nott," Theodore said. He let the boy's wrist go and put a polite smile on his face to hide the raw emotion. "Nothing less than Outstandings will do."

Draco snorted. "Try not to pretend that was something special in your life. I got the you-have-to-receive-good-marks lectures too." He didn't mention that some of them had included complaints that he was letting a Muggle-born surpass him. That was a bit of the past that was best forgotten.

"I didn't," Blaise said. "Get lectures on school, I mean."

That hung there for a moment until Theodore said, "Lucky bastard," and the pink clad elf returned, followed by a crew of other elves bearing food.

"Now you all eat," she said. "Then the boy needs to pick up his room."


	295. Chapter 295 (Theo and Percy Contemplate)

Pansy and Hermione went back to Andy's house and gathered his things, including the new book sitting on his dresser. They called the police about Andy's father and, after some careful application of magic, they left the Muggle world convinced that while, yes, this man had indeed had a son, when the boy's mother had died, he had been taken in by family in the United States. "Tragic," one officer said as he poked at a photograph album carefully doctored to erase any evidence Andy had lived with his father. "Losing both parents like that. Good thing the lad's got people who love him, even if they are Americans."

"Americans are all touched in the head," his partner opined. "Peculiar, the lot of them."

"Well," Pansy said as the police left, off to file reports. "That's that."

Andy alternated between being pleased to be at the Manor and being overcome with tears. He was excited to unpack his things, but when he reached the new book that his father had bought for him, he swallowed hard and struggled to control his emotions.

"He did love you," Hermione said as gently as she could. "Very much. I have all of the owls that he and I exchanged before the Easter holiday. Whenever you're ready, you may read them."

Andy nodded shakily and thanked her. He collapsed into sleep early, worn out by the emotional highs and lows of the day and somewhat aided by another dosed cup of hot chocolate, courtesy of Draco.

Pansy had kissed the boy goodnight and returned home, Blaise watched the child go to bed with sad, worried eyes, and Susan busied herself poring over catalogues of presents for boys, as if she could buy away his grief. Blaise eventually joined her and made no comment about her uncharacteristic interest in stuff. Sometimes, he knew, stuff was easier.

Like Andy, Theodore and Percy retired to their own room early and shut the door, though they didn't avail themselves of any of Draco's chocolate.

"So," Theodore said as they lay in bed and stared up at the beautiful ceiling. "Parents."

Percy reached over and took Theodore's hand. "It will be fine," he said.

Theodore let out a bit of a harsh laugh. "I have no idea how to be a father," he said. "You may not have noticed this, but my own father was not what one might call a stellar human being."

Percy squeezed Theodore's fingers. "I think you have a better idea than you give yourself credit for," he said. "Your father was a right bastard in a lot of ways, but he loved you. That's all you really need to do."

"Well," Theodore said, "that and avoid attempted genocide."

Percy squeezed his hand again. "I don't think the elves quite approve of genocide, so I'm afraid that's right out. I've already crossed it off in my planner."

That tricked a laugh out of Theodore, if only a tiny one. "I'm serious, Percy," he said. "I really have no idea how to do this. I never had so much as a sibling unless you count Hermione, and she doesn't really need looking after. I don't even know how to be a big brother."

I did," Percy said. "Have siblings, I mean. Several, as a matter of fact. Not that any of them liked me very much, to be honest, but I have a pretty good idea how the dynamic can work. And I'm sure my mother will be more than willing to help, whether we want her to or not."

"Oh," Theodore said. "Goody. Something to look forward to."

Percy moved his hand so it rested on Theodore's cheek, cupped the man's face, and gently made him turn so he was looking at his partner. "You've got this," he said. " _We've_ got this. We survived a war; we can survive one teenage boy."

Theodore sighed. "I guess you're right," he said.

"It's a failing," Percy said. He moved closer so he could press his mouth against Theodore's. It took a moment before he responded but then Theodore groaned and fisted his hands in Percy's short hair. After a long, emotionally fraught weekend they took refuge in tongues and hands and let lust, and love too, battle away the fear and the worry. Love wins, in the end, always.


	296. Chapter 296 (Susan and Blaise are Fluffy

Susan stretched out and let her head fall back onto the pillow. Blaise was, as she'd discovered, not wholly the lazy good-for-nothing he liked to pretend. Given a task he found interesting, he put considerable effort into success. Flashes of the sharp wit and nearly brilliant mind that had propelled him into top level N.E.W.T. classes at school peeked through at times and she found herself charmed, if somewhat bemused, at those moments by the astute observations the seemingly empty-headed popinjay made.

He also had remarkable endurance. He took his cardiovascular fitness seriously and the results weren't something to be scoffed at.

"You will be the death of me," she said as he rolled over to lay beside her. He kept one hand splayed across her abdomen and she let herself luxuriate in that touch.

"It's a night to celebrate," he said. "Tomorrow they'll vote and you'll be the youngest member of the Wizengamot."

Susan wasn't sure of the wisdom of celebrating before the vote, but she'd seen a bit of Draco's blackmail materials. The behavior of some of wizarding Britain's most respected politicians disgusted her. She'd learned one thing as she looked over the letters and photographs the Malfoys kept in tidy files: never be alone, or allow any child to be alone, with several members of that august body. She'd wanted to expose them all and already felt dirty that she'd allowed herself to be talked into letting them sit, their crimes unknown, so she could manipulate them into doing what she wanted.

So it begins, she'd thought to herself.

All she said now, as Blaise ran a hand over the curve of her hip, was, "Who would have expected the whore of Hogwarts to do so well."

"Mmmm," Blaise said. "A good year spent gathering your own cache of embarrassing information."

"Or giving people a way to embarrass me," she said.

He snorted at that and propped himself up on one elbow, the glint of total vanity back in his eye. "I don't think so," he said. "That you were a confident woman who enjoyed sex? What in that could embarrass you?"

"That I was a pathetic loser?" she suggested.

Could a man look more self-satisfied, she wondered. "Pathetic losers don't end up on the Wizengamot," he said. She thought of the current members and was about to say that evidence suggested that was not exactly true, when he said, "And they certainly don't end up with a partner such as myself."

She goggled a bit at that. Blaise could be vain but _really_?

"Oh, yes," he said. "I'm quite out of the reach of pathetic losers. Hot models and hotter politicians who are going to set the world alight? Those are the women who can bag this body." He smirked. "Not losers."

"Blaise," she said.

"Mmmm?"

"They could still blackmail me. Ask for hush money or some such."

His smile became absolutely predatory. "I'd like to see them try," he said. "I'm sure you know all sorts of intimate and embarrassing things about those young gentlemen." He took her hand and set it against his now flaccid cock. "Some, I'm sure, were less impressive than yours truly."

She bit her lip to keep the laughter in. "This would be true," she said as seriously as she could manage.

"Some were undoubtedly unskilled in ways they'd rather not have you expound upon as you told Rita Skeeter, our pet reporter, that, yes, it's true, you _did_ have sex with that man, though you aren't sure anything over that quickly should really count."

"Blaise!" she was really laughing now. "How would I keep them from decided to do a tell all if the weapon I have is promising to mock their performance?"

"You won't have to," he said. "I'll just take them out to lunch and we'll chat jovially like good fellows and they'll get the message."

"A couple of the Ravenclaws won't," she muttered, thinking back to a few of her book smart but oddly unclever partners.

Blaise laughed at that, the warm sound she adored, and she felt an answering grin tug at her mouth but all she said was, "Well, they won't."

"I shall be sufficiently clear that they will follow my reasoning," he promised her. His fingers continued to trace circles over her hip and what had been soft earlier became less so as she smiled up at him, charmed as always. "Would Madam Wizengamot Member like to me demonstrate the ways in which, unlike those callow youths in your past, I do not fall short?" he asked.

She would and he did.


	297. Chapter 297 (Testing with Pyrotechnics)

Theodore knocked on George Weasley's door and, when the man opened it, the look on Theodore's face made George ask, before he had even greeted Theodore, "What's wrong?"

Theodore startled at the obvious subtext and said, hastily, "Nothing, At least, I mean… not that." He ran a hand through his dark hair and swore under his breath before he muttered, "Though I'm starting to think that that might be the only option if I want to survive the next five years."

George looked worried and held the door open so the other man could go into the small flat above the joke shop. "What is it?" he asked.

Theodore pulled a crumpled sheet of parchment out his pocket and shoved it at George. He read it over and began to laugh.

"You know how your products are banned at Hogwarts?" Theodore demanded.

"I did notice, yes," George said. It was an ongoing sore spot for him.

"Well, they don't actually check the Floo connection that Andy uses to sneak home."

George began to laugh harder.

Andy, it seemed, had been quietly hoarding Weasley firecrackers for months, sneaking them through the Floo and hiding them in his room. Because he hadn't brought them in through the usual student channels, no one had noticed until he, along with several of his friends, had picked one night to set them all off in a gloriously extravagant and absolutely forbidden display of pyrotechnics.

"I like this kid," George said. "I wonder if I can make him a distributor."

Theodore looked like he wanted to pick something up and throw it at the other man. "You're not helping," he said. "I actually got a letter."

George had to admit that seemed unusual. By and large, shenanigans at Hogwarts went unreported to parents. When one considered all the things that he and Fred had done that had never made it home, the choice of McGonagall to send a letter home for this fairly harmless, if dramatic, prank seemed a bit excessive.

"Maybe it's just it's a new day." George said. "New leadership and all that."

"Or maybe she thinks that I'm incompetent," Theodore said. "Maybe she thinks that I shouldn't be raising that boy. Maybe she thinks none of this would have happened if he had a normal family."

George leveled a steady look at Theodore. "You know what he is trying to do don't you?" he asked. At Theodore's perplexed look, George said, "He wants to see if you're going to get rid of him. He wants to know that even if he's a giant pain in the arse, he still has a place with you."

"But of course he does," Theodore said impatiently. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You know that," George said. "And I know that, but does the 14-year-old know that?"

"Of course he does, Theodore said again. "That adoption bonding… we told him over and over again it was permanent, that he had to be really sure, that it couldn't be undone."

"But does he believe it?" George's words were quiet and Theodore closed his eyes to try to deny the truth under them. Andy never believed he was wanted, not really. This might be the first time he'd ever dared to even test the issue.

"Loss is hard," George added, still quiet. "People do strange things."

"Thank Merlin he waited until school was almost over," Theodore said. "That's something at least. Two more days, then he'll be home for the summer and I won't need to worry about the wrath of McGonagall. It'll all be easy then."

George busied his hands setting up a tray with the inevitable sparkling water. "It could've been so much worse," he said

"How?" Theodore asked, though he was starting to look more amused by the prank than horrified or afraid of the school's reaction. "He lit up the entire night sky."

"He didn't release a basilisk," George said. "He didn't fight a giant chess set. He didn't try to sneak his name into the Goblet of Fire using an aging potion." George nudged his friend as he handed over a glass. "All things, I might add, done by people raised in a so-called proper family."

"I suppose," Theodore muttered, taking a swallow of the water George offered him. He still found the physicality of drinking comforting even if what he had was innocuous.

George added with a rather sly smirk, "He didn't get in trouble with girls."

"You're giving me a headache."

"How goes wedding planning?" George asked in an obvious change of subject.

Theodore groaned dramatically. "Another thing that's giving me a headache," he said. "Who knew elves were so into weddings?"


	298. Chapter 298 (Getting Ready)

Padma leaned back and looked over her work. Hermione twitched and Ginny laughed. "It _itches_ , _"_ Hermione said but none of the women gathered around her took her complaint seriously. They'd been sitting in an empty classroom at Hogwarts for most of the morning as Padma drew patterns over Hermione's hands and arms. Peacocks strutted and otters leapt for joy surrounded by intricate detailing. While they waited for the paste to dry, and, indeed, as they'd watched it go on, they'd shared gossip and 'do you remember when's. Pansy had them all rolling with stories of Draco's petulance as a child. Ginny admitted she was encouraging the boys' ongoing gift war on the sly to see how long it took them to paint themselves into a corner.

"The Valentines," Hermione said, almost unable to breathe for laughing. "Do you think they'll end up snogging some day because neither of them will back down?"

"I think they might end up shagging," Ginny said, tears running down her cheeks she was laughing so hard. "'Scared, Potter?'" she added in a near perfect mimicry of Draco.

"It would be worth it to become an animagus just to see how that went," Hermione said to Ginny's snort of agreement. They both loved the way the pair had shifted from animosity to friendship in the ever-escalating parade of bad gifts and worse ideas. By the looks the other three women were exchanging, however, they found Ginny and Hermione's amusement over the idea of the two ending up in bed together because neither would admit to being bested perplexing at best. "It's just… I mean, I _know_ he adores me and is as straight as they come, and, well, it's _Harry,_ so it's just _funny_ ," Hermione said to try to explain. It was clear none of them got it. She and Ginny looked at one another and Ginny shrugged.

"Well, the mehendi's your something borrowed," Hannah said, desperate to change the subject. "What's the rest of it?"

"Something old, something new," Susan recited. "Something borrowed, something blue, and a new knut in her shoe."

"The dress is old _and_ new," Hermione said, "and Theodore gave me the knut. I don't think I have anything blue though."

"We figured you wouldn't," Pansy said. "You're just worthless, Granger. Here." She reached down into her bag but before she could pull anything out Hermione interrupted her.

"I'm not wearing a Kneazle kitten, Pansy, not even if you've managed to breed a pure blue one."

"That would have been clever," Pansy said, "but we went more traditional." She put a small box on the table but before Hermione could open it Padma picked it up.

"You'll muss yourself," she said. "I'll get it for you."

"We all went in on it for you," Susan said. "A present from all of us to you."

Padma lifted the lid of the little box and Hermione gasped. A simple silver chain holding a tiny sapphire twinkled up at her. "Something blue," Padma said with pleasure.

"You shouldn't have," Hermione said though it was clear by the tears threatening to well out of her eyes she was glad they had.

"We love you," Pansy said. "Don't be daft. Of course we were going to get you something besides those hideous and appropriate crystal bowls and vases and such that will sit around gathering dust in curio cabinets for the next 50 years."

. . . . . . . . . .

"My head hurts," Draco said.

Blaise eyed him. "I have more hangover remedy," he said.

"I feel fine," Theodore said with absolute smugness. "Maybe you both should have stuck to water."

"It was not a night for water," Draco said. "It was a night for… what _was_ it a night for again?"

"Debauchery?" Blaise suggested. They'd decided to drag Draco on a pub crawl in lieu of a proper stag party and had visited more fine drinking establishments than they could remember, and several not so fine. Magic had already erased the worst of their excess, and by the time Draco and Theodore were expected to be at Hogwarts they'd all surely be as good as new, but at the moment heads still throbbed. Harry, whose head was surely just as unsteady, was sleeping his own sins off at Gimmauld Place. Percy had yet to come downstairs.

"Alcohol reminds us of our failings the next day," Draco said. "I feel properly chastised for… I didn't do anything I'd need – "

Theodore snorted so loudly Draco stopped. "I can honestly tell Hermione that even when tempted with lush, willing, and presumably disease-free – "

"You make such assumptions," Blaise muttered. "I'm not sure I'd go that far."

" – women in any number of bars all you did was bore them with tales of how perfect your bride was. I think one of them was on the verge of slapping you when you compared her appearance unfavorably to Hermione's."

"I'm getting married today," Draco said. His tone mixed wonder and fear together. "I'm getting married to _Hermione_ today."

"I know, mate," Theodore said. "And you have two hours to get ready before we apparate to Hogwarts so maybe another dose of hangover potion and then a shower?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Tomorrow's chapter(s) will go up a bit later than usual, around 7:30 or 8:00 PM New York City time. I will be celebrating the end of this insane project by getting drunk on tumblr so please join me as I post intoxicated nonsense and babble thanks at everyone for supporting this!**_


	299. Chapter 299 (A Wedding)

Theodore took Hermione's hand. "Do I pass inspection?" she asked, and he could tell she wanted to reach up and fuss at her hair one more time by the way she raised her hand halfway to her head and then lowered it again.

He let his eyes travel along the dress. She'd won the argument about the shoes and had a pair of simple, white ballet shoes, a silver knut he'd given her carefully affixed to the side of one of them. Blaise had clutched at his throat and flung himself to the ground and swore she was going to kill him. "I am not using figurative language, Hermione," he'd said from where he lay. "I am being serious." She'd kicked him, albeit not hard, told him to get up, and held fast to her comfortable shoes even when Blaise had arrived at Nott Manor with not one, not two, but three pairs of white high heels that she really had to choose from.

You couldn't see the shoes beneath the long dress so Theodore wasn't sure why it mattered. Narcissa Malfoy had ventured up into the attics of Malfoy Manor and returned with a lace dress that Draco had described as "beyond unfortunate." Someone deep in the bowels of Malfoy history had had access to a stellar lacemaker and no taste whatsoever. Theodore wished he could have seen Hermione's face when she was first presented with the dress. "I don't mean _wear_ it," Narcissa had reportedly said in horror as Hermione struggled to find a polite way to reject the offering. "I meant to suggest you could use the lace to make a dress that suited you."

The dressmaker had worked wonders. The antique lace rested atop a layer of silk, and the simple lines of the new dress showcased the original tatter's skill without overwhelming the bride wearing it. Hermione looked beautiful. The mehendi Padma had done took his breath away. It had to have taken _hours,_ and Hermione had a tiny blue sapphire resting at the base of her throat.

"You are perfection," Theodore reassured her as she made a motion toward her hair again. "They're waiting for you."

She took a deep breath and nodded, and they stepped around one of Madam Pince's boxes of books in need of repair. The reception would be huge. The Nott elves, along with Narcissa, had taken the entire thing over. The whole first floor of Nott Manor had been transformed by more flowers than Theodore would have believed were in the entire county, and the ballrooms stood waiting for their return. He suspected guests had already arrived and stood on the back terrace or wandered across the lawn, drinks in hand. Yes, the reception would be huge but the ceremony itself was tiny. Theodore had been first surprised and then charmed when the couple had told him they planned to get married in the library at Hogwarts. "It was where it all began," Draco said by way of explanation.

When Theodore had pointed out that limited the size of the guest list considerably, Hermione had muttered, "Good."

Hermione had opened the floodgates to the reception invitees. There would be hundreds upon hundreds of people at Nott Manor: from other Hogwarts professors to Draco's ducklings and their families, from members of the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army to such Slytherin graduates as were free to come. It would be a joyful, raucous circus. The wedding itself, however, she'd wanted to keep small.

Percy had walked Theodore up to the library to help Hermione get ready and told him he'd see him back at the Manor. When Theodore had protested the man was more than welcome, he'd leaned over, kissed him, and said, "I know. But let this just be for them." Theodore had begun to object again - Hermione and Draco had both made it clear that Percy was welcome - but the man had added, "I think my talents might be better suited for keeping my mother from antagonizing the elves," and he'd left.

Hermione stepped around another box, this one filled with loose pages that had come out of books sometime in the past, and Theodore opened the door for her. Draco, Harry, and Ginny were waiting for them and they all let out a quiet gasp when they saw the bride. Theodore had to control the urge to say something like, 'I know I clean up well but no need to sound so surprised.' Instead, he just led the bride to the assembled trio and, with a kiss to her cheek, handed her off to Draco.

Harry held the book with the vows in hands that almost didn't shake. He'd gotten dispensation from the Ministry to perform the ceremony, and he might have accidentally bonded several pairs of rabbits behind the Burrow to lifelong fidelity while practicing the words, but the rabbit population at the Weasley abode would probably survive. He looked at Hermione in her finery and said, "You look beautiful."

She smiled. "Thanks, Harry."

Theodore let his eyes fall to her wrist. She had his mother's bracelet on. He remembered giving her the lavish antique the previous fall. Ginny coughed and he looked up. "You're supposed to take her bouquet," the woman said.

Theodore laughed and let Hermione hand him the flowers Neville had put together. Narcissus and lilies and pansies and ivy all somehow fit together into a nosegay, along with some weed Neville had discovered at Hogwarts that had turned out to be a hitherto undiscovered species of magical plant. They shouldn't have all worked together and yet, somehow, they did. Theodore was able to credit Neville's skill with plants for that with only the tiniest twinge.

"I hope I don't muck this up," Harry said. "Hermione, you're possibly the bravest, most steadfast person I know, and I hope you have a lifetime of happiness."

She reached out and took Draco's hand in hers, and Harry flipped through the book in case that early touch would somehow make the charm not work; he hadn't had to worry about that with the practice rabbits, after all.

"Draco Malfoy." Harry took a deep breath. "Be good to my best friend."

"I will," the man said. "You know I will."

"I do," Harry said.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "That's what _they_ say, dumb ass."

Harry huffed out a sigh of aggravation, and Theodore tried not to laugh. This was what happened when you let Ginny Weasley be a major part of a serious moment. "Do you, Hermione Granger, take this man, to be part of your life and your soul, never to be parted, from this day forth no matter what may come?" Harry got the words out all in one breath and the looked at Hermione expectantly.

Theodore wondered if she'd let the moment drag out to torture Draco but she didn't. She was too busy looking rapt as she gazed into the man's eyes, her fingers twined in his. "I do," she said.

"Do you, Draco Malfoy - "

"I do." The words fell out of Draco's mouth before Harry could even get the entire vow out and all Theodore could think was, 'Eager, much?'

Harry lowered the book and glared at Draco. "If I don't do the whole thing right and you end up life-bonded to Theodore or something, it is not my fault."

"Sorry," Draco said. Theodore took a step away from the couple, just in case. Draco really wasn't his type.

Harry tried again. "Do you, Draco Malfoy, take this woman, to be part of your life and your soul, never to be parted, from this day forth no matter what may come?"

"We can literally part, right?" Hermione asked before Draco agreed. "It didn't occur to me until just now that - "

"It's the same vows my parents used," Draco reassured her. "We aren't going to be physically stuck to one another forever." He eyed her as he waited for another interruption or question; when none came, he said, again, "I do."

"Here's hoping I do this right," Harry muttered, and then he cast the binding spell. As it had tied together multiple pairs of rabbits, so it glowed for a moment, then settled along the shoulders of the couple, the blue light glowing brighter before it seemed to seep into them as waves soak into sand at the shore. "Did it take?" Harry asked.

Hermione and Draco both nodded, though they didn't stop gazing at one another to turn their attention to the officiant. Theodore wondered if the charm had had the same effect on the rabbits; had they just stopped what they were doing to look at one another as though they saw and understood for the first time?

"I take thee," Hermione said, her hands fumbling as she slipped the ring Theodore handed her onto Draco's hand.

"I take thee," he repeated. He turned to Ginny and she handed him the simple band. As he pushed it up Hermione's finger he mouthed the words, "I love you."

"I now pronounce you man and wife," Harry said. He sounded as filled with wonder by the ripples of the charm as Theodore felt. "You may kiss the bride."

Draco pulled Hermione closer until she swayed against him, and let go of her hands so he could brace her, his palms against her lower back as she tipped her face up to his. Theodore had seen them drop kisses on one another in passing, had been subjected to snogging sessions he'd prefer to forget, and was fairly sure that - at least once - they'd had sex in the dorm room he and Draco had shared Hogwarts while he'd pretended to sleep. He was still enchanted by the kiss that sealed their bond. It was gentle and filled with promises of years of life together and fierce all at once.

It probably also would have lasted long enough to leave the few onlookers bored and uncomfortable if Ginny didn't break the peace by saying, "Not to sound like Andy, but are we done here? Because I'm hungry."

Draco and Hermione broke apart and Theodore handed her her bouquet back. "Well," Hermione said. "That's done. Now onto the hard part."

"Oh?" Ginny asked, her eyes falling to the crotch of Draco's trousers in a deliberate way that made Theodore snicker.

"Not that," Hermione said. "Keeping the elves and your mother from getting into a pitched battle over starters and cheese plates."

. . . . . . . . . .

The receiving line took long enough that even flats made her feet hurt by the end and Hermione began to wonder if giving Narcissa a free hand with the invitations had been a terrible idea. Minerva had kissed her cheek with dry, paper lips and wished her the best. Arthur Weasley had pumped her hand and told her he'd always thought of her as a daughter, all while not quite meeting her eyes. Ron had hugged her so tightly she'd thought she might break, then shaken Draco's hand and mumbled something about best wishes. After he and Tracey had gone off in search of one of the caterers roaming with trays of starters, Draco leaned over and whispered into her ear, "Are pigs flying?"

Hermione looked out over the crowd in sudden fear that George had cooked up some kind of horrible wedding surprise. "Where?" she asked. "I could have - "

"No," Draco said, granted a brief moment of respite as a matron chatted up his mother and complimented her on some charity project or other and the line paused. "I mean, Ron Weasley just congratulated us."

"He does have manners," Hermione hissed back.

Draco put a shocked look on his face. "Well," he said. "You would know."

Hermione kicked him and he laughed before he turned to take both hands of the charitable matron and tell her how pleased he was to see her and had she had a chance to meet Hermione before this? No? Well, let him make the introduction because she and his mother were starting a new foundation to benefit needy students and they should all get together for lunch sometime to see how her formidable talents could come into play.

. . . . . . . . . .

"Did you mother come back to Britain for this event?"

Blaise turned to eye one of the members of the Wizengamot who'd strolled up to him. He'd seen the man's file. He'd had to hold Susan back after _she'd_ seen the man's file. Rich, dissolute, and unattractive in every way, the man held his non-alcoholic drink with disdain as he searched the crowd for beautiful young women. "I'm afraid she's still in mourning," Blaise said. "There was a tragic water-skiing accident and she felt it would be inappropriate to celebrate."

"So sad," the portly wizard said, hiking his robe up so he wouldn't trip. "She always livens up the place."

"I'm sure she'd appreciate anyone who took the time to visit her in the time of grief," Blaise said.

A glint came into the man's eye. "We should all support our fellows," he said.

"Indeed," Blaise agreed. As the man waddled off, his substantial vaults a curse he didn't yet realize, Blaise rather hoped his mother would choose some kind of painful, lingering ailment for this one.

. . . . . . . . . .

"How you doing?" George asked.

Theodore shrugged. "One day at a time," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

"I haven't had a chance to thank you for your remarkable work," Narcissa said.

Padma tried not to shake. She knew - _knew -_ that Draco's mother hadn't been the largest fan of Muggle anything not that long ago and the woman was _formidable._ She'd seen Kreacher find another place to be when the designer-robe-clad matriarch seemed headed in his direction. Even one of the Nott elves had sniffed but done what the woman had asked. She took a deep breath and said, "I was pleased some of my ideas for combining Muggle and magical remedies were effective."

"I was also pleased," Narcissa said. "I owe you a debt of gratitude I doubt I can ever properly repay." She took a sip of the sparkling water in a glass held between perfectly manicured fingers and added, "I shall try, however."

Lucius joined them, leaning on his cane. "Don't terrorize her, my love," he said.

"I wasn't," Narcissa said. Padma saw that Lucius didn't believe her but he didn't contradict his wife. He just offered her a hand and led her to the floor to do a slow and dignified version of a waltz.

. . . . . . . . . .

Posy Parkinson thought that _Pansy's_ wedding had been much nicer. She sniffed as she eyed the bar. Not a drink to be seen. Not even _champagne_. Who had a wedding without _champagne_? It was ridiculous. She wobbled as one of her heels sank into the grass and she muttered a quick charm to get herself upright which didn't work so she had to bend down and pry her shoe out of the ground thinking how _inconsiderate_ it was that they hadn't charmed the ground not to be quite so natural and ground-like. When she stood up, that awful Weasley harpy was standing there looking even dumpier than usual in some kind of pink lace dress that made her skin look blotchy.

"Posy," Molly said. "How lovely to see you. You look nice."

"You don't," Posy said. She squinted at the woman. "It's a wedding, not dress-like-your-mum day. Do you even own a mirror?"

Molly's mouth dropped open. She closed it and huffed in outrage.

Posy sniffed. "You look like a fish when you do that. I'm grateful for Pansy's sake that Charlie got his father's looks."

. . . . . . . . . .

Theodore stepped up behind Andy. The boy had been cornered by an elderly wizard who was telling him what a fortunate young man he was to have been adopted into the House of Nott. "Ancient family, you know," the man doddered. "You're a lucky boy."

Theodore put a hand on Andy's shoulder and said, "We generally don't like to think of the death of his father as fortunate."

"It's just - " the man began.

"It was tragic," Theodore said. "It is _tragic_ to have your father die when you're so young."

The man mumbled, looked affronted, and took off for the bar, likely to be disappointed by the offerings.

"You okay?" Theodore asked. He knew the answer, of course. He wasn't okay, Andy wasn't okay, Susan wasn't okay, Hermione wasn't okay. You never got 'okay' about being an orphan, not even with a new family and all the love you could absorb. Some losses were too great to ever go away. "It gets better," he added, as much to himself as the boy at his side. "It hurts less the further out from it you are."

Andy's chin quivered for a moment before he said, "I'll be fine."

"If you want to go inside," Theodore began but the boy shook his head.

"I promised Trista I'd dance with her, and if I disappear she'll never forgive me." He scuffed his foot across the grass and added with a mutter, "Though if Percy's mum grabs me into a hug and smothers me one more time, I just might go hide."

. . . . . . . . . .

Harry slipped Draco a package. "A special gift, just for you," he said. "On this most auspicious of days."

Draco eyed the other man. "You already officiated the ceremony," he pointed out. "That was gift enough, and if it weren't, Ginny sent over some overpriced and useless bowl that Clem has decided is her new favorite thing ever."

"How is Clem?" Harry asked. "Any new little puffballs to congratulate you for?"

Draco snorted. "Do I dare open this?" he asked.

Harry put his hand over his heart. "Would I give you anything that wouldn't be - "

"Yes," Draco said. He opened it anyway and just as quickly tried to get the paper back around the book. "A sex manual?" he hissed as an elderly couple, some kind of political connections he was supposed to cultivate, walked by. He had a horrible feeling the woman had caught a glimpse of the very limber woman on the cover of the book demonstrating who knew what. "You gave me a _sex manual_?"

"Well," Harry said, "I certainly didn't need to give one to Clem. We all know she has no problems."

Draco couldn't get the paper all the way around the book and the cover model kept trying to stick her foot out and wiggle her toes at him. "I am going to kill you," he said.

Harry shrugged. "Not going to work and you know it," he said. "What with me being the Boy Who Lived and all."

. . . . . . . . . .

The ducklings all clustered around the cake. They'd squirmed through the interminable receiving line and allowed themselves to be pressed into a portrait with Hermione and Draco, the happy couple surrounded by a cluster of young girls in pale silver dresses Narcissa Malfoy had selected and sent to each family; they aren't precisely bridesmaids, she'd written to their parents, but I know they are dear to Draco, and I want to them to feel a part of the event. Rumors had begun flying that bride and groom were about to cut the cake, however, and since the elves hadn't permitted even one little hand to steal anything from the divine looking candy table until after the cake cutting, the girls all squirmed with impatience.

Draco tousled Crina's hair and she scowled at him. She was not five and didn't appreciate his ridiculous ways of treating all of them like little sisters; they were nearly adults and you did _not_ ruffle the hair of adult women. "You ready?" he asked them.

Sari just leveled the best put out glare she could manage at him. She'd been practicing it in the mirror and with Azusa and they were sure - sure - it was a look that would compel any boy into acceding to their whims. Draco, product of master manipulators, seemed unmoved. "Is that a no?" he asked her, a smirk in his voice.

"Draaaaaaco," Trista said. "You're being mean."

Draco turned to Hermione. "How about you?" he asked. "Ready for cake?"

Hermione laughed as she looked over the tower of silver tiers topped with fondant apple blossoms that spilled down the side and tumbled onto the cake plate. "It seems too pretty to eat," she said.

"We made it to eat," one of the elves said. Her glare was much more effective than Crina's. "Cut it now."

Draco picked up the cake knife and set it to the elaborate pastry and Hermione put her hand over his. He counted to three so quietly the girls could barely hear him, then they pushed the knife down. A few slices later and they each had a slice of cake in their hands held delicately towards the other's mouth. Narcissa had already warned them both what would happen if they did anything childish or 'unnecessary' with the cake. With that threat in mind, they just took delicate nibbles before setting their pieces down and letting the elves get to work cutting and distributing the rest. "I'll lick frosting off you later," Draco whispered in her ear before they stepped back to let the flock of girls descend upon the offering, "when my mother can't see and object."

. . . . . . . . . .

Millicent Bulstrode hadn't really wanted to come to this but Pansy had insisted. She didn't know most of these people, didn't like many of the ones she did know, and there wasn't even any alcohol. A large, ugly Kneazle Millicent had no trouble recognizing as Granger's halfbreed had taken to her, at least, and she'd covered her discomfort with this social event by petting the creature until it had wandered off. She'd seen it a bit later with a Pygmy Puff, of all things, riding around on it. She'd admired Fleur - a total waste that one liked men - and then found herself standing by a large shrubbery, some kind of ridiculous juice in her hand, wondering how long she had to stay before it wasn't rude beyond measure to leave. The pair of women already standing next to the table seemed equally uncomfortable.

"Penelope," one of them said, holding her hand out. Millicent shook it, and that of the other woman who introduced herself as Willa, and asked how they knew the happy couple. Everyone knew the happy couple. Penelope, however, shook her head. "Really, I know Percy," she said. "We dated at Hogwarts."

Millicent looked from Penelope to Willa and back again.

"I know," Penelope said. By the time the elves came by again, sniffing and dressed more outlandishly than even Pansy's harpy of a mother, the three women had shared their mutual admiration of Fleur Weasley's remarkable beauty, were comparing notes on the similar issues involved in breeding Kneazles and pygmy goats, and had made plans for Millie to go visit them in Wales. They had someone they wanted her to meet, they said.

. . . . . . . . . .

"It's a lovely event," Andromeda said. She'd let one of the Slytherin girls take Teddy off and now he was being cooed over by the whole flock of them as he flashed his hair and skin to match first one girl then the other. Andromeda had had to smother a smile when the boy tried to match Azusa's scarf. He'd almost managed it and ended up with hilariously mottled silver and black hair, unable to quite get the feather patterns in the design right.

Narcissa glanced at her sister who had approached her, drink in hand, as if they hadn't been wholly estranged for decades. "Thank you," she said.

"Mother would be proud, I suppose," Andromeda added.

"I doubt it," Narcissa said. "She's probably rolling in her grave."

Andromeda glanced around at the milling crowd. Not only was the bride a Muggle-born, forever polluting the Black bloodlines, the guests weren't quite the thing either. Muggle-borns, half-bloods, people who worked for a living. "Old bat needed exercise," Andromeda said. "How are things?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Theo wrapped his arm around Susan, who not only had refused to wear any of Blaise's beloved heels but had kicked her own flats off at some point and now stood barefoot on the grass of the back lawn. Her painted toenails stood out against the green and Theo dropped a kiss onto her head. "How's the prettiest girl in all Hogwarts?" he asked.

"I think I'm now the prettiest member of the Wizengamot," she said, smiling at him.

Blaise snorted where he stood, glass of fruited ice in his manicured hand. "Not that there's exactly a lot of competition," he said. "That witch with the wart on her nose? Merlin's flaccid broomstick, but she needs some fucking help."

"Blaise!" Susan hit him on the arm. "You can't say that!"

"Just did," he corrected her.

Theodore laughed at the pair of them before he gave Susan's shoulders a squeeze. "I'm glad to see you've stopped arguing you're beautiful. Blaise is good for something at least."

"I had to tell her she had nice ratios," Blaise said. He sounded smug that Susan turned to gape at him. "And that she was symmetrical."

"You… you… _sneak,_ " Susan sputtered as the realization hit her that his initial declaration of her beauty hadn't been quite as awkward and incoherent as she'd assumed at the time.

Blaise smirked at her. "I said you were beautiful in a way you would hear," he said. "Give me a little credit, Susan. I may be shallow and an arsehole, but I'm also a Slytherin wizard, and I held my own for seven years in that snake pit. Plus I'm not exactly inexperienced with beautiful women." He took a sip of his drink. "I do know how to tailor my delivery to fit the audience."

She huffed and rolled her eyes, but Theodore noted she didn't look exactly unhappy, especially when Blaise leaned over and said in a stage whisper, "Let me make it up to you later?"

Blaise, Theodore noted to himself, really was the perfect political spouse. No ambitions of his own, social graces that let him charm the birds from the trees, and the absolute conviction that his partner was the best thing since flying brooms.

. . . . . . . . . .

"It's not like it's difficult," Pansy said with some annoyance. "The trick is keeping the butter cold. I don't know why people act like croissants are some kind of unreachable cooking Everest. You don't even need a cooling charm; just use a marble work surface." She took a sip of her drink and squinted at her husband who beamed at her with a wholly innocent look on his face. "Why are you suddenly so interested in cooking techniques, anyway, Charlie? I made beef wellington two nights ago and you didn't have a single comment other than it was tasty."

"It was tasty," he said. "And no reason."

Percy, who'd joined them and stood at Charlie's side, controlled his snort of derision at his brother's response and avoided letting his eyes rest on his mother, who'd come up behind Pansy and heard the woman's entire annoyed response to Charlie's questions about baking. Molly was staring at Pansy as if she'd never seen her daughter-in-law before.

"Now phyllo dough from scratch is a bit of a bitch, I admit," Pansy said. "I'll never do that again."

It was, Percy reflected to himself, unkind to enjoy the way his mother gaped at that revelation but, given how much she'd judged all her children's significant others as unworthy, he suspected he could be forgiven for taking the tiniest amount of pleasure in this moment.

. . . . . . . . . .

Luna Lovegood, back in Britain from whatever improbable quest she'd been on, stood on her tiptoes and kissed Theodore's right ear. He stared at her, as bemused as he recalled being the last time he'd had any interaction with the dotty blonde. "See you next cycle," she said.

She wandered off, and Pansy came to stand next to him. "What was that all about?" she asked.

"Damned if I know," Theodore said.

Pansy shrugged. She had no interest in daft schoolmates she'd never known well. She turned to look, instead, out to the dance floor. Trista and Andy danced, arms held stiffly enough to make a dance teacher weep tears of frustration. Blaise had Susan held against him and had his head positioned so he could whisper into her ear.

"And they all lived happily ever after?" Theodore asked, his fingers around the goblet with its sparkling water and bobbing raspberry. His own eyes followed Draco and Hermione as they danced; the groom said something that made his partner first laugh and then hit him in the arm. George and Angelina looked as graceful as only two talented Quidditch players could. Harry and Ginny likewise spun and twirled with athletic ease. Fleur almost sparkled in Bill's arms, and Theodore found himself wondering how she endured the way people stopped to stare at her in a magical daze; he suspected she hated it. Even the sight of Neville and Hannah, not, perhaps, as effortlessly graceful as some of the other couples but leaning into one another with quiet contentment, couldn't dim his pleasure in this day. "Happy ever after," he said again.

"No such thing," Pansy said. She nudged him with her foot at the disgruntled sound he made that that. "We'll never be able to totally let it go, not even if we want to." She shrugged and added, her voice rigorously controlled, "Yesterday, a woman refused to sell me flowers because of who I am. It'll never go away."

"It's better than it was," Theodore said, his fingers creeping to the ruby in his ear.

"Better," she agreed. Whatever she was going to say next was interrupted by Charlie coming up to drag her out to the dance floor. Percy wasn't far behind him.

He held a hand out and, with a laugh, Theodore set his drink on a nearby table and joined his partner.

. . . . . . . . .

Trista and Andy stood, arms length apart, and rocked back and forth on the dance floor as far more accomplished dancers spun around them. "I guess you'll have to take lessons so you can be like them," Trista said. "I mean, not that you're all rich and stuff."

Andy shrugged. Theodore hadn't mentioned anything like that. "If you came too," he said at last. "So I had a partner."

She giggled a little and ducked her head, and somehow, he felt a tiny surge of what felt like happiness.

. . . . . . . . . .

Hundreds of people milled around, high heels sinking into the lawns and voices raised to be heard over the music. Scores danced, couples swaying and spinning as they enjoyed the knowledge they were beautifully dressed at an event so elite the couple hadn't even permitted society photographers. This was the place to be and they were here and the world was good.

One important pair weren't there.

Draco tucked one hand more securely around Hermione's waist and brushed his lips against her ear. "How are you doing?" he asked her.

She sighed then, lest he take that as some kind of unhappiness with him, said, "I'm fine. It's just...you know."

"Somewhere," he said, "a couple in Australia is sitting on their stoop watching the waves and one has just turned to the other and said, 'I don't know why, but something about tonight feels magical, as if the world were a little more perfect.'"

Hermione let out a choked laugh and tried not to sniffle. "That's sweet, but I don't think so," she said.

Draco shook his head. "The heart knows," he said. His words were so quiet she had to strain to hear them. "If you obliviated me, I would still know, somehow, that you existed. I would know I loved you. I would know when you were happy and I would know when you were sad." Before she could object with logic and reason he added, "Plus, I sent them a bottle of very good Muggle whiskey and paid their mortgage off, so they're celebrating along with us, even if they aren't quite sure why."

Hermione's sniffles won the battle and escaped and Draco pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to her and she mopped at her face and nose on the dance floor. "Draco Malfoy," she said. "Who knew you were such a - "

"Pratty ferret?" he asked her, gathering her back into his arms. "I think you've been wise to that for a while."

"That wasn't what I was going to say," she said. "Romantic. Who knew you were such a romantic?"

"Don't tell," he said. "I have a reputation as a not-quite-Death Eater to maintain."

Her eyes flashed in the way they did before she went on a rampage, but he tugged her against him so closely he would have earned a boxed ear in early dancing classes, and she just said, "You weren't."

One song ended and another began and they kept dancing. The yards and terraces were filled with people but the world was just them. Their friends spun and twirled in finery around them, heels and bare feet hitting against the dance floor, but they danced alone. They were surrounded but they could have still been by themselves on the cold ground outside of Hogwarts, stargazing, realizing they were both more than they'd known or believed. Draco shifted his hands and felt the scratch of the antique lace under his palms. "Are you ready?" he asked her.

"For what?" Hermione said.

"Everything," he murmured. He lowered his mouth to hers and just before his lips brushed against hers, he said again, "For everything."

 **.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **~ finis ~**


	300. Chapter 300 (Epilogue)

**~ epilogue ~**

"Scorpius?" Hermione looked at Draco as the baby kicked yet again. The exciting flutters of early pregnancy had given way to solid kicks that hurt. This kid had a will and he didn't like being crowded. She couldn't wait to be done.

"It's an excellent name," Draco said, a trifle defensively. "I have a constellation name, and - "

"Fine," she said as the kid kicked her _again_. She was really much too huge and tired to argue about this and, given their first real date had been to go look at the stars that summer at Hogwarts, she was secretly charmed by the naming plan. "But if it's a girl, I get to choose the name."

"Cassiopeia?" Draco asked.

She threw a pillow at him but made a mental note that Cassiopeia really was a lovely name.

.

.

.

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. . . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - First and foremost, let me thank the myriad beta readers who have helped with this story. Shayalonnie read every chapter from the very beginning and kept me going with her enthusiasm and support. She also did a comma hunt beta read of the final chapter because my eyes were just unwilling to proofread any longer. ReadingSerpent read all the Hinduism chapters and helped make those as accurate as possible. OrlandoSwitch helped with many, many of the Theodore/Percy chapters. thelemonandthepolarbear was instrumental in the Chanukah arc of the first half. mvrgxrnstxrn read all the chapters about Islam and the Muslim student and helped make those as accurate as possible. Any remaining errors are, of course, my fault._**

 ** _Then, I have to thank you, insane and wonderful readers. Your energy kept this going when I really wanted to quit (and there were some times I really wanted to quit). From daily reviews of "thanks!" to sometimes heartbreaking private messages, you kept me writing and I cannot thank you enough and I am happy this ridiculous format made people smile and lightened some people's loads, even a little._**

 ** _Two people have written ficlets set in the 'Rebuilding Universe'. If you want more, I highly recommend reading them because they are both amazing and both are linked out of my profile (If there are more I don't know about or have forgotten because my brain is a sieve, let me know, please, so I can add them to the list.)_**

 ** _* Mrs Authoress Malfoy: Percy's Anniversary (Percy/Theo)  
_** ** _* soyouwannabebeloved: Fickle Things (Neville/Theo)_**


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